Data cable converter not working?

Pulled this from the review section of the Amazon link you provided:

"I purchased this adapter to transfer files off of a handful of older IDE hard drives that I have been meaning to clear for years.

No instructions were included, but I'm the kind of guy that usually just plugs stuff in and sees what happens. What happened? NOTHING.

Grumble mumble! Rotten thing! Deep breath, calm down.... think....

A little Google action, a little Amazon review reviewing... and... I was about to throw this thing through the window! Here's the main thing, I wasn't able to find all these details in one place and I about wore out my computers power button in my trial and error process, so here is what I came up with. I hope this helps you.

1) IF it came with instructions, I would recommend it - OR - if you dare put up with potential aggravation and lots of lost time, you can read my pointers here and give it a shot.

2) If the LED isn't on, it's not working. It's most likely hooked up wrong. Check the following.

3) It is VERY easy to mis-align the adapter to the pins on your IDE drive by one row. double check this carefully. I missed the first time, not knowing it was possible to do so. That alone was worth 30+ minutes of "aaargh" factor.

4) You will need to run a power connection to the adapter (powers the adapter) and also run one to the hard drive itself (yes, two power plugs are required). I though initially that one power lead to either the drive or the adapter was all it would need. More "aaaargh" factor.

5) You can connect IDE drive to SATA motherboard, or SATA drive to IDE mobo. The adapter has teeny tiny writing on it indicating which port to connect to for you application. I would have thought for IDE drive to SATA mobo I should use SATA host --> IDE, right? Noooo, that would make too much sense. I actually had to use the opposite port and bingo, it worked. Crazy.

6) Make sure your drive jumpers (if it has any) are set to Master. It might work otherwise, but I have one drive I still can't access, and I think it's because I can't figure out which configuration is master. Booo hissss!

A lot of work isn't it? Yes, but only if you are trying to trouble shoot each one of these factors with multiple drives.

So here is the nutshell: Make sure pins are aligned right, use 2 power leads, set IDE drive to master, connect sata cable to motherboard and adapter... fire it up and if you have a red light, all should be good, if you don't, or it just blinks once and goes off, swap the sata port on the adapter and try again, you should be good to go.

Total pain in the neck for me, but if you follow my tips, it should eliminate 90% of your potential aggravations with this product. It did work well once I got things working and that's why it earned more than one star."


Hope one of those suggestions fixes your issue.