To continue the question (sorry,geekapproved, you may want to skip this). I took a hard drive out of my old laptop and want to move all that stuff onto my current laptop. Is an external hd enclosure the way to go? The old laptop doesn't work so I can't simply connect the 2 laptops with a cable and do the transfer that way.
Still have a question about an external hd enclosure.
- Thread starter aednyc
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WyomingKnott
Legenda in Aeternum
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If all you want to do is get the data off the old drive and then you will be done with it, you can get an SATA to USB (or IDE to USB if the drive is that old) cable for less and use that to copy the data. The only advantage to putting it in an external enclosure would be if you want to continue to use it, as an external drive or a backup drive.
What's with you and geekapproved?
What's with you and geekapproved?
But if all I have is the hard drive that I popped out of the old computer where would any cable connect to it? That's why I thought I would need an enclosure. (nothing going on with qeekapproved. He/she said that they didn't understand why there was any confusion at all about the use of an external hd do I didn't want to annoy with yet another question about it.)
WyomingKnott
Legenda in Aeternum
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If you are only going to use it once, to get data off it, you can get a fairly cheap SATA to USB cable. One end attaches to your drive, one end plugs into a USB port on your computer (got USB ports?), it does the protocol translation and you can read your drive. With no endorsement of the particular product, look at this example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002&cm_re=sata_to_usb-_-12-232-002-_-Product
The rear edge of the HDD (the edge close to the blue "WD Scorpio Blue" label) has three connectors on it. At the far right is one with four pins - ignore that one. To the left of that are two connectors that look like plastic ridges with little right-angle bends on one end of each. These two are different widths. If you look closely at the bottom surface of these ridges, you'll see they hold brass contact strips on them. These two are standard SATA connectors - wide one for power, narrow one for data. Any external case OR any simpler adapter for USB use will have mating connectors built into them so that you can just plug the drive into the adapter. A USB-to-SATA adapter ought to come also with a power supply module that connects to the adapter from a wall outlet. This is because most USB2 ports cannot supply enough power to run a HDD, so power from a better source is needed to ensure good HDD function when using this adapter.
WyomingKnott
Legenda in Aeternum
- Aug 29, 2006
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