40 MB or 40 GB?? I can't imagine a disk drive from the "40 MB" era still being operational, much less having a USB interface.
The first step in rescuing data from a failing disk should be to use
ddrescue to recover as much data as possible to a file or disk partition on the new system. Then, depending on what could be recovered, we can take a look at what needs to be done to access the data. You should not try to play directly with the failing drive. Damage from a head crash can expand rapidly.
ddrescue will make a quick pass to recover those sectors that can be read easily, and then go back to work on the troublesome ones.