EIDE to USB

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Yo all,

Just want to start off by saying that I hope you all have a fantastic 2008.

Now, on to business. Does anyone have any experience with IDE to USB cables?

My gf's laptop is acting wonky and needs a reformat. However, she has about 40gb of stuff that she doesnt want to lose (on a 60gb drive). So I want to backup all her stuff to my new drive, format, then copy her files back. Of course, this is assuming I can plug the IDE drive into the power only of a PC, then the IDE to USB cable into the drive/laptop.

I just dont know if these cables are reliable or not.

Any ideas?

LG

[aedipuss]

i use these to back up loose drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

works fine and comes with an external power supply to plug into the drive.

[prouton]

First of all, IDE to USB isn't just a "cable", it's an adapter with electronics to handle the signalling/serialization of the bits. As such, they tend to also include power for the device (rather than plugging the drive only into the powersupply of your tower).

You've got two choices in adapter: the first type is designed for temporary usage (no case), while the second is intended to adapt a 2.5" laptop hard drive into an external drive, often powered by connecting to two USB ports simultaneously. Either will work for what you've described (so long as the former includes a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter).

[Richard_G]

I use one of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-5-Laptop-To-Desktop-3-5-IDE-Hard-Drive-HD-Adaptor_W0QQitemZ290...QQcmdZViewItem take the laptop hard drive out, use the adapter to connect it into my desktop and copy all the data across.

[oldandinthe way]

Should work. Consider XXClone, a freeware program to copy the image to the new drive.

[ahhaa]

I'm a bit fuzzy on why you are doing it this way...
is there some reason why you can't get the two computers together in the same room?
Or can't just install this IDE hard drive into your computer?

coupla things...
a prior virus scan of her HD is good practice, especially as her HD is acting wonky.
an 'oldtech' Cat5 crossover cable should be under 5 loonies, (if you can't borrow one for free) and have a better bit rate & allow OS controls too.
if you both have wireless hardware, you could easily do an ad hoc network (the closest computers all do it 8) ).
if it were me & I wanted to get lucky, I'd get her one of those current deals on an external HD of her own, or mebbe an external DVD burner they are cheap too, eh?

good luck!

[RabidDog]

You could get an external enclosure which takes an 2.5 or 3.5 ide disc internally and connects via usb. Make sure its USb2.0 tho otherwise transfers will be too slow to be useful. I have one and and the only problem I have is that the Usb2.0 cable is a little loose at the enclosure end making it sometimes "touch and go" but otherwise great.