Like many of us, I have at least six old desktop PCs and various other old hard drives sitting around, and really should see what is on them, and what needs saving. I could fire up each one, but even then there is the problem of moving files. No USB sockets, and some don't even have a network card.
Looking at adapters such as this, via Amazon :
formatting link
Seems to accept most hard drives, and provides power as well as data, ideal to just plug into my laptop via USB to view contents and copy across if required, or just delete if not. Do these things work as well as the blurb suggests? Any experience? Thanks!
I have used similar and they are fine, that one may have a use in the future for plugging a SATA drive in via USB temporarily. I don't know what you plan to do with the old drives but it may be worth using something like DBAN:
formatting link
Unless you plan to physically destroy them, one of the old machines may be able to run it.
As several of us have pointed out, there are lots of them around and they all seem to work. With Amazon't guarantees there is no risk at all in trying one, not even return postage. Hardly any point posting, and snide responses are certainly not justified. Whoosh.
That was actually the first answer, before anyone had pointed out anything, and the response was certainly not meant to be snide, hence the smiley. Apologies if it was taken as not meant.
Until a recent house move when I got rid of a lot of obsolete techno-crap, I had several IDE drives that ranged in size from 500 MB (yes, not GB) to about 40 GB. I kept the largest of those IDE drives in case I might ever need one, but I doubt whether any PC sold in the last few years even *has* IDE ports as opposed to SATA ones.
I bought an IDE/SATA-to-IDE interface for accessing drives that I've removed temporarily or permanently from PCs. I offer a PC repair service in my area and there have been several occasions when PCs have totally failed to boot and I can't find a quick solution. As long as the drive isn't encrypted (if it is, all bets are off) then I can remove it, connect it as an external drive to a working PC and then copy off important data - subject to the usual loooong delay while Windows does a "take ownership" of every file/folder under C:\users\<username>. Once the data is safe, I can do a fresh installation of Windows, without having to worry whether or not this will preserve the C:\users tree.
I also have an interface board from an external HDD where the drive failed but the board is fine. This is a little less cumbersome to correct up because it plugs directly into the drive, without needing separate SATA and power leads from interface to drive. It's also faster, being USB3 rather than USB2.
Talking of old kit... one of my regular customers whose Win 8 laptop I've worked on in the past asked me whether while I was there I'd be able to sort out his Windows 95 PC ;-) He had kept this ancient PC, never connected to the internet and only used with the version of Office that it came with, for some of his financial records. I'm not sure whether it had USB ports, so I don't know whether he ever transferred any data files to/from it. The problem was a dead CMOS battery (not surprising after 25 years!) which was made worse by the fact that the terminals of the leads from battery to motherboard had been *welded* on to the battery by the PC vendor, so there was no way I could get them off and had to cut the leads. I had to botch a solution (sellotape the bare leads to either side of the battery) as he wanted it working "now" rather than waiting for me to order a CR2032 battery holder.
It was very odd when I booted up the PC and was reminded what Win 95 looked like. If I'd had to do any configuration (as opposed to just changing the battery) I'd probably have taken a llittle while to remember my way round the Control Panel and its various applets.
I?ve got a USB 2 to Sata converter which is more of a lead - not really a box. I bought it before USB 3 was available.
It certainly works. Fine for checking contents of a stray disk etc. and copying files. Possibly not as quick as it could be etc.
You can also get ones where the drives stand vertically. Often they have 2 or 3 slots, perhaps 1 2.5 and 2 3.5, I considered one of those but never bothered.
On this subject, is there any evidence that there is any difference in constant-use longevity between disks mounted horizontally, and those mounted vertically?
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