Is it something really old IDE, *like* this one?
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Vintage-HDD-Maxtor-7170AI-170-MB-3-5-IDE-Hard-Drive-Tested-RARE-/171399081134?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item27e82e6cae
Personally I would buy one of these (if you can find same model) and make tests on the bought item.
Of course Windows 7 is like the LEAST suitable OS to attempt accessing one of these, and a write blocker may well prevent the thing to work.
At the time you had to manually set the hard disk parameters in the BIOS (and I doubt that it's geometry will be ever recognized by a "modern" BIOS ).
As a side note:
Why not attempting to switch on the whole "vintage PC"?
If it was kept well, it is likely it will work fine, it will have lost date/time, but I have re-switched on PC's of similar vintage and usually they do work.
You have to understand how - even once you will have managed to duplicate forensically the hard disk contents it is likely that the "documents" in it will be stored in an archaic format - possibly proprietary - that no recent tool will be able to read/access.
jaclaz
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