I anticipated having to move data off 5 HDDs from an old WinXP SP3 tower to a new Dell Studio 15 Laptop. I'd researched several Universal USB HDD Adapter kits and choose the NewerTech kit. What arrived was a generic kit without the NewerTech "black block" with lights for power and data transfer confirmation. Instead, the power converter block had one green light that was not coming on. I plugged it in and tried to power up the first EIDE FAT32 HDD with no luck and a "burnt wire" smell soon filled the room. My Dell Laptop was PNP installing (2 drivers) and confirming USB Bridge connection to the adapter block with both IDE/EIDE and SATA connections with Win7 OS. After a couple of hours of frustration I called the seller and they eventually confirmed a replacement was coming with pre-paid return USPS shipping. The 2nd kit arrived 8 days later, this time the power converter was "green" and 4 of my 5 drives powered up and data was transferred fine at about 25-26MB per/sec. I think, but don't know this for sure, but the first drive I plugged into the kit was "killed" by the bad power converter block.
This is a generic kit, all parts made in China. I lost about 75GB of music and video downloads, a collection that was the envy of friends... gone. The seller did right by me, but I feel there was a "bait n' switch" as now, after notifying Amazon about the situation, the "featured" kit photo is NOW the generic kit not the NewerTech kit. I now have to contact the download sites, 4 or 5 and see if I can't get them to make my download history available to download once again, this will takes hours, patience and email... I wished I gotten the NewerTech kit first.
Finally, this is not a kit for "techies" who don't know what they are doing because there are NO instructions. You must follow standard HDD installation sequence by first having the USB cable connected, then connect the SATA/IDE cable and then last connect the power. Have the drive level or flat, don't move it around or even roughly handle the HDD when powered up, you can damage the drive or damage sectors. Good luck... USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter Serial ATA, ATAPI/IDE 3.5" &2.5"
My internal PATA 80 GB Toshiba hard drive was showing signs of death (click whir, click whir). So I quickly backed up my data on the external drive before anything traumatic was lost. Then I removed the failing hard drive and replaced it with a brand new 160 GB Samsung PATA and cloned the OS and files onto the new drive using the external drive as the master.
I forgot to erase the data off the failing 80 GB Toshiba drive and re-installing the drive back into the computer to erase the data would be such a chore. Also, due to a shortage of funds I couldn't go out and purchase a case to transform the Toshiba into an external drive for erasing. Fortunately, I found this little budget friendly gem made by Newer Technology, which lets me hook up directly to the drive using a series of cables and my computer to erase the Toshiba drive.
The PATA drive has 44 mini pins and at first I was a little worried, as I did not see the matching 44 female mini pin sockets on the Universal Drive Adapter. As it turns out, there are four pins grouped together on the PATA drive that don't need to be connected and I was able to connect to the Universal Drive Adapter while disregarding the 4 mini pins. All the connections fit snugly without coming loose and the colored lights on the main unit tell you what devices are getting power. This product works great for accessing various HD types (SATA and PATA) and sizes (2.5", 3.5", and 5.25").
My only gripe is the power block could be made smaller to allow for more portability of the system. The power block is approximately the same size of a laptop's power block. In short, initial impressions are good and this product works as advertised.
When one of my computers graphics cards died, I needed a way to get the data off the drives and heard great things about this cable from Leo Laporte, "The Tech Guy". I decided to order the unit and have been very pleased with how well it has worked with all my drives.
One thing, you may need to connect power and data to the HDD before plugging the USB part into the interface to get it to connect...this was not stated on the manual but I was able to easily figure it out.
It works pretty good, instructions are pretty basic but it is pretty straight forward to use anyways. If the drive is dead in your computer, this won't make it work, that should be a given and not held against the product. I've had no issues with it and does what it is intended for, even useful for using old drives around your house to store data on, not bad.
This product is a real life saver. My hard drive was dying, so I had to replace it. I thought I had salvaged most of my files, but after the drive was removed, I realized I hadn't transferred all the files I had needed. The thought of trying to reinstall the near-dead drive to retrieve the remaining files wasn't very appealing, so I order this instead.
The only reason I didn't give it a "5" is due to:
1) It doesn't come with any instructions or warnings (perhaps none are needed??)
2) You have to attach all the connections, then connect and reconnect the USB cable a couple of times before your system might recognize the drive.
3) There are lights on the central connector that look like buttons, but they're not; they simply light up once the connection is established. One USB light goes on once that connection is established, then one of the two other lights (IDE or SATA) go on after the external drive connection is actually established.
Once the connections were established, the drive did show up in full under the My Computer folder. It was smooth sailing from there.
I would recommend this product because if you ever have a dying drive, it will allow you to recover add'l files externally and without your machine being at the mercy of your dying drive. - Ide Adapter - External Hard Drive - Sata - Usb'
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