TRouble recognizing Maxtor IDE ATA HD

[brasi333]

Hardrive background: On my previous desktop, I accidentally put RAM in the wrong way(it was dark, but anyway) which fried my system; I actually smelt some smoke and there was a small black mark on the RAM stick, I did shut it off almost right away though. So that system is gone, but I figured the HD might still be ok.

I haven't been able to have it recognized by my new system though, which has a SATA hardrive as the master. I take the jumper off my old IDE HD, plug it into the grey IDE connector, and it doesnt show up at all.

Few questions/comments:
1. Might a USB enclosure have it recognized, or would this not work if its not recognized when I directly hook it up?
2. What about a SATA to IDE converter? These are cheap, would one of these maybe work?
3. My friend says that his Linux system might be able to read it.

Basically what are my options to recover the data on this disk, short of sending it someone and paying a couple grand? Im going off the assumption that its still possible to somehow read it, does anyone know of a way to check if its even readable anymore?

Thanks alot

[brasi333]

nevermind, as i read in another thread on here, connecting it to the primary IDE cable, the black one, made it recognizable. still with the jumper off, in slave mode.

thanks to the forum