This is very cool. I frequently need access to hard drives that for whatever reason need to be removed from a computer. Usually, the computer has died and data needs to be retrieved from the hard drive.
This universal DriveWire allows nearly any hard drive to be plugged into a USB port.
Features:
- It's Small - it'll easily fit in a briefcase or toolbox.
- It has a power supply to power-up the hard drive.
- No software required - it's as easy to use as a flash drive or thumb drive. It comes with a CD but I didn't really need it.
- Flexible - can support almost any drive: 2.5" laptop drives, IDE drives or SATA drives. Apricorn Drivewire Universal HDD Adapter USB To 2.5IN & 3.5IN Sata & Pata
This little device is elegantly general in its possibilities. Indeed, it has more possibilities than those described in its manual.
The "EZ Gig II Backup & Disaster Recovery Software" that comes bundled with it is very powerful, and I say more about that in the next paragraph. Even without using that program, the hardware itself enables one to peer from any USB-equipped computer into the directories and files of a disk drive that is mounted on the adapter. Just as one can browse through file-containing directories (folders) on a USB flash drive, one can do the same with the contents of an intact disk drive attached to this adapter. When my daughter's laptop quit working for reasons unrelated to its disk drive, I removed the laptop's disk drive (a simple process requiring only a Size #0 Phillips screwdriver), connected the disk drive to the Apricorn DriveWire, plugged the DriveWire's USB cable into my desktop computer, and easily retrieved the document files that she needed.
Now to the "EZ Gig II Backup & Disaster Recovery Software." The happy ending to this story is that a potentially disastrous loss turned into no loss whatsoever and a painless disk-drive upgrade from 100GB to 160GB. Here's the problem I faced. Knowing that the shop which was going to perform an extended-warranty repair was likely to wipe the laptop's hard drive of its contents and reinstall Windows, I wanted to preserve all of the installed software and Windows customization to which my daughter was accustomed. To accomplish this, I needed to clone the laptop's disk drive and keep the clone when sending the laptop in for repair. If the laptop had still been working, this would have been easy to do with the EZ Gig II software: install the software on the laptop, attach a new drive to the Apricorn DriveWire, plug the DriveWire's USB cable into the laptop, and run the program. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that because the laptop was dead. Here's how I solved the problem. I bought two Apricorn DriveWires--one for me and one for my daughter. I installed my copy of the EZ Gig II software on my desktop computer. I mounted the laptop's original, 100GB disk drive on one DriveWire adapter, and I mounted a new, 160GB disk drive on the other DriveWire adapter. Plugging both USB cables into the desktop computer and running EZ Gig II, I was able to clone the contents of the 100GB original onto the 160GB replacement.
When the repair shop fixed the laptop, it did as I had feared: It wiped the laptop's hard drive of its contents and reinstalled Windows. No problem. My daughter replaced the Windows-only 100GB disk drive with the 160GB clone, and she was completely back in business. The only change was a 60GB increase in storage capacity!
In reading the review where the drives appeared to have been 'killed' by this product, I was thinking of how opposite my experiences have been with this product.
I have used the adapter and the 'EZ-Gig' software to upgrade my Dell laptop 2.5" drive. I have used the same arrangement for three 3.5" desktop drives. The Dell and one of the 3.5" drives is a SATA. The other two 3.5" drives were not.
In all of the above cases, the issue and goal was to increase the space available without performing a 'clean install' of Windows--and the requisite re-install of all of the programs/settings--etc.
In another case, I used the adapter to read a very old 10 gig drive and retrieve information.
As noted in the other review, the USB connection to the adapter and my PCs (the Dell laptop (E1705) and desktop (no 'brand' per se [PC800-E Deluxe montherboard] has worked very well indeed.
There was no trouble using the adapter and the accompanying 'EZ-Gig' software.
Though I dare not recount the steps taken for the upgraded(I should have documented them), the process for all of the upgrades was quite easy and saved a great deal of time.
I do agree that 'anything is possible'---I also, do agree that that type of answer is not conducive to good customer relations.
The five 'stars' are for the operation of the product only--Not an endorsement of the answer you got from Apricorn.
I hope that others will share their experiences with the product. That will give a better view of what is happening [good and bad] in the 'field.' - Sata - Sata Usb Adapter - Hard Drive Upgrade - Harddrive Upgrade Kit'
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