Which usb-sata/eide adaptor?

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Guest

I've been following the thread on hard drive updates as I need to replace
drives on both a laptop - Inspiron 2600 (eide)
- and a desktop pc (sata)

The usb-sata etc adaptor seems a very useful device, but after 'googling'
for them here in the UK I am a bit unsure what to buy. There are many
different ones on offer and a wide range of prices. Also there are warnings
from some users about some of them containing faulty chips that can corrupt
data. The last thing anyone wants in such a device is that kind of
unreliability! Some of the advertisers do specify which chip set is used,
but others do not, so 'buying something similar' to the one quoted in the
other thread is not proving to be as
straight forward as expected.

Does anyone have advice of which models/suppliers are fully reliable and
safe, and available in the UK at a reasonable price?

Thanks,

S
 
why would you need one.
I am sure your desktop PC has 2 internal SATA connectors buy a new SATA
drive
hook it up and clone the old drive to the new.
As for the Laptop buy an EIDE drive and an external HD case which connects
the HD internally with EIDE pins but connects to your Laptop externally with
USB.
?????

peter
 
spamlet said:
I've been following the thread on hard drive updates as I need to replace
drives on both a laptop - Inspiron 2600 (eide)
- and a desktop pc (sata)

The usb-sata etc adaptor seems a very useful device, but after 'googling'
for them here in the UK I am a bit unsure what to buy. There are many
different ones on offer and a wide range of prices. Also there are warnings
from some users about some of them containing faulty chips that can corrupt
data. The last thing anyone wants in such a device is that kind of
unreliability! Some of the advertisers do specify which chip set is used,
but others do not, so 'buying something similar' to the one quoted in the
other thread is not proving to be as
straight forward as expected.

Does anyone have advice of which models/suppliers are fully reliable and
safe, and available in the UK at a reasonable price?

Thanks,

S
Click to expand...

Find a web site with customer reviews. Don't buy the product
unless the reviews are clean and trouble free. If the customer
reviews are OK, then it must be fit for purpose.

For example, reading a few reviews on this one, a common theme
is - "destroyed my hard drive".

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

None of the units seem to be perfect, so select one which doesn't
ruin anything! It seems the quality of the power adapter that comes
with the products, is one issue.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...10353&Subcategory=353&srchInDesc=usb+sata+ide

Paul
 
Hi Peter, thanks for the response.

Yes, those are other ways of doing this, but it does seem that a USB adaptor
that would take the various drives without needing to buy enclosures for
each, would be handy - especially as this would also make cheap offdesk
storage/backup easier.

Do the external EIDE cases have their own power supply?

Getting off topic a bit but as you raised the issue: I'm having trouble
establishing what drives I can actually use. The Dell Laptop Inspiron 2600
(XP Home SP3), is said on a Dell forum to only be capable of recognising
drives up to 80 gig - but I see plenty of bigger ones on offer?

The desktop is also a Dell (Optiplex GX270 XPPro SP3 ) and does seem to
have a sata connector going spare, but again, when I made enquiries on a
Dell forum they also said there were limits to the capacity of drive that
would recognise as well. So I've been a long time getting round to making
the upgrades as there seems to be one view that pretty well anything with
the right connector will work, and another that each computer has its own
limits. It is all rather confusing, so if you have any further experience
to share on this I would be grateful.

Cheers,

S
 
Paul said:
Find a web site with customer reviews. Don't buy the product
unless the reviews are clean and trouble free. If the customer
reviews are OK, then it must be fit for purpose.

For example, reading a few reviews on this one, a common theme
is - "destroyed my hard drive".

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

None of the units seem to be perfect, so select one which doesn't
ruin anything! It seems the quality of the power adapter that comes
with the products, is one issue.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...10353&Subcategory=353&srchInDesc=usb+sata+ide

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul,

That's pretty well put me off all of them!

S
 
spamlet said:
Hi Peter, thanks for the response.

Yes, those are other ways of doing this, but it does seem that a USB adaptor
that would take the various drives without needing to buy enclosures for
each, would be handy - especially as this would also make cheap offdesk
storage/backup easier.

Do the external EIDE cases have their own power supply?

Getting off topic a bit but as you raised the issue: I'm having trouble
establishing what drives I can actually use. The Dell Laptop Inspiron 2600
(XP Home SP3), is said on a Dell forum to only be capable of recognising
drives up to 80 gig - but I see plenty of bigger ones on offer?

The desktop is also a Dell (Optiplex GX270 XPPro SP3 ) and does seem to
have a sata connector going spare, but again, when I made enquiries on a
Dell forum they also said there were limits to the capacity of drive that
would recognise as well. So I've been a long time getting round to making
the upgrades as there seems to be one view that pretty well anything with
the right connector will work, and another that each computer has its own
limits. It is all rather confusing, so if you have any further experience
to share on this I would be grateful.

Cheers,

S
Click to expand...

The Inspiron 2600 uses an Intel 830MG chipset.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2600/en/sm_en/specs.htm

You can find the 830MG mentioned in here. This document addresses the 137GB
capacity limit, causes by computers not fully supporting 48 bit LBA addressing
mode.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070121085230/http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

If you wanted to remain "safe and issue free", you could purchase a 120 GB
laptop IDE drive or smaller. Or, buy one larger in capacity than that, and see
whether there are any BIOS issues or not. The Seagate document, mentions
workarounds of one sort and another, for issues other than the BIOS response.

The basic mechanism, of how 48 bit LBA mode was supported, is described in this
technical proposal from long ago. This describes how the IDE registers were
"double pumped", to allow passing larger addresses. It isn't much of an
explanation as such, but shows how a 28 bit address would be supported,
versus a 48 bit address. Just read the first couple pages, to get some
idea.

http://www.t10.org/t13/technical/e00101r6.pdf

*******

The Optiplex GX270 is 865G/ICH5, and I wouldn't expect an issue with that
with regard to the SATA port.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx270/en/ug/specs.htm

An example of a SATA port with a capacity issue, was with motherboards
using a Silicon Image SIL3112. Connecting a 1TB drive to the onboard
SIL3112, caused the system to freeze in the BIOS. There are few other
issues with SATA.

A number of VIA chipsets, have an issue with 3Gbit/sec versus 1.5Gbit/sec
operation of the SATA cable. Using the "Force150" jumper on the SATA drive
fixes that. Your GX270 doesn't use a VIA chipset, so no issue there.

Sometimes, you might need a power adapter cable, if your computer lacks
the proper connector to power the SATA drive. Example here. You also
need a SATA data cable, if one isn't already in the computer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812201002

Paul
 
Paul said:
The Inspiron 2600 uses an Intel 830MG chipset.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2600/en/sm_en/specs.htm

You can find the 830MG mentioned in here. This document addresses the
137GB
capacity limit, causes by computers not fully supporting 48 bit LBA
addressing
mode.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070121085230/http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

If you wanted to remain "safe and issue free", you could purchase a 120 GB
laptop IDE drive or smaller. Or, buy one larger in capacity than that, and
see
whether there are any BIOS issues or not. The Seagate document, mentions
workarounds of one sort and another, for issues other than the BIOS
response.

The basic mechanism, of how 48 bit LBA mode was supported, is described in
this
technical proposal from long ago. This describes how the IDE registers
were
"double pumped", to allow passing larger addresses. It isn't much of an
explanation as such, but shows how a 28 bit address would be supported,
versus a 48 bit address. Just read the first couple pages, to get some
idea.

http://www.t10.org/t13/technical/e00101r6.pdf

*******

The Optiplex GX270 is 865G/ICH5, and I wouldn't expect an issue with that
with regard to the SATA port.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx270/en/ug/specs.htm

An example of a SATA port with a capacity issue, was with motherboards
using a Silicon Image SIL3112. Connecting a 1TB drive to the onboard
SIL3112, caused the system to freeze in the BIOS. There are few other
issues with SATA.

A number of VIA chipsets, have an issue with 3Gbit/sec versus 1.5Gbit/sec
operation of the SATA cable. Using the "Force150" jumper on the SATA drive
fixes that. Your GX270 doesn't use a VIA chipset, so no issue there.

Sometimes, you might need a power adapter cable, if your computer lacks
the proper connector to power the SATA drive. Example here. You also
need a SATA data cable, if one isn't already in the computer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812201002

Paul
Click to expand...


Paul this is an amazing response and I thank you very much for finding all
this information for me.

The Seagate article seems to imply that if I have XP Pro or Home fully up to
date then this capacity issue will not apply.

However, you kindly pointed out the chipset on the laptop, which is
mentioned as having an Intel Application Accelerator v2.3 update available
as an alternative way of addressing the issue. Not sure whether this means
I should try to obtain that as well as being up to date with XP?


The GX270 as I recall looking inside has 40gig IDE drive and a space for a
SATA. So I was hoping a swap would be quite straight forward aside from the
alleged capacity issue?, but I have just read on another forum that to image
a drive it needs to be IDE to IDE or SATA to SATA. So if I image my 40 gig
drive onto a bigger SATA drive it wouldn't work. Is this true. It seems
the more I look into this the more caveats I find!

Anyhow, I can't thank you enough for taking so much trouble over your reply.

Cheers,
S


 
spamlet said:
Paul this is an amazing response and I thank you very much for finding all
this information for me.

The Seagate article seems to imply that if I have XP Pro or Home fully up to
date then this capacity issue will not apply.

However, you kindly pointed out the chipset on the laptop, which is
mentioned as having an Intel Application Accelerator v2.3 update available
as an alternative way of addressing the issue. Not sure whether this means
I should try to obtain that as well as being up to date with XP?


The GX270 as I recall looking inside has 40gig IDE drive and a space for a
SATA. So I was hoping a swap would be quite straight forward aside from the
alleged capacity issue?, but I have just read on another forum that to image
a drive it needs to be IDE to IDE or SATA to SATA. So if I image my 40 gig
drive onto a bigger SATA drive it wouldn't work. Is this true. It seems
the more I look into this the more caveats I find!

Anyhow, I can't thank you enough for taking so much trouble over your reply.

Cheers,
S
Click to expand...

For the GX270, that would depend to some extent on the modes supported
in the BIOS, for the ICH5 Southbridge SATA and IDE ports.

Intel has a mode called "Compatible", and that makes a SATA
drive look identical to an IDE drive. Compatible allows the usage
of four of the potential six spots for drives. Your Dell may not
have implemented all six anyway, and only provided four places
for drives. If such is the case, the Compatible setting
may be available to you, and not upset anything. It might even
already be in Compatible mode, or not even bother to mention
it is using Compatible mode all the time. If the motherboard
has room to plug in six drives, then the settings in the BIOS
should be a bit more complicated.

The second mode you can get on ICH5, is "Native". That moves the
interface for the drive, into the PCI address space. A slightly
different driver is used, but if you're already running a
recent Service Pack for WinXP, you might already be all set there.

The beauty about trying these things, is "cloning" doesn't hurt
anything. You copy the entire old drive, to the new one. Disconnect
the old drive, for the boot attempt, then try to boot with the new
drive. If you got it wrong somehow, you can always go back to the
original drive, then ask around for suggestions. So it's not
like the attempt is destructive or anything. It's just like
making a backup.

Intel chipsets can have other modes, with names like "AHCI" or
"RAID". Those may require pressing F6 and installing a driver
on a floppy, at the beginning of the Windows install. There are
sometimes recipes, for getting around the installation issue in
that case, but the procedures can be pretty complicated. As
far as I know, you shouldn't need any of that complication,
for your currently planned cloning attempts.

In any case, as long as you can find an easy way to do the drive
copying, you should be all set. There has got to be at least
one USB to SATA/IDE adapter that isn't a dud, out there.

I can't promise how the Inspiron BIOS is going to behave,
if you connect a much larger drive. If you don't really need
the space that badly, I'd just go with a 120GB sized one
(to stay under 137GB). Actually, the drive with the best
ratings, in the IDE category of 2.5" drives on Newegg, is
an 80GB one (5400 RPM). $50.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136129

Paul
 
Paul said:
For the GX270, that would depend to some extent on the modes supported
in the BIOS, for the ICH5 Southbridge SATA and IDE ports.

Intel has a mode called "Compatible", and that makes a SATA
drive look identical to an IDE drive. Compatible allows the usage
of four of the potential six spots for drives. Your Dell may not
have implemented all six anyway, and only provided four places
for drives. If such is the case, the Compatible setting
may be available to you, and not upset anything. It might even
already be in Compatible mode, or not even bother to mention
it is using Compatible mode all the time. If the motherboard
has room to plug in six drives, then the settings in the BIOS
should be a bit more complicated.

The second mode you can get on ICH5, is "Native". That moves the
interface for the drive, into the PCI address space. A slightly
different driver is used, but if you're already running a
recent Service Pack for WinXP, you might already be all set there.

The beauty about trying these things, is "cloning" doesn't hurt
anything. You copy the entire old drive, to the new one. Disconnect
the old drive, for the boot attempt, then try to boot with the new
drive. If you got it wrong somehow, you can always go back to the
original drive, then ask around for suggestions. So it's not
like the attempt is destructive or anything. It's just like
making a backup.

Intel chipsets can have other modes, with names like "AHCI" or
"RAID". Those may require pressing F6 and installing a driver
on a floppy, at the beginning of the Windows install. There are
sometimes recipes, for getting around the installation issue in
that case, but the procedures can be pretty complicated. As
far as I know, you shouldn't need any of that complication,
for your currently planned cloning attempts.

In any case, as long as you can find an easy way to do the drive
copying, you should be all set. There has got to be at least
one USB to SATA/IDE adapter that isn't a dud, out there.

I can't promise how the Inspiron BIOS is going to behave,
if you connect a much larger drive. If you don't really need
the space that badly, I'd just go with a 120GB sized one
(to stay under 137GB). Actually, the drive with the best
ratings, in the IDE category of 2.5" drives on Newegg, is
an 80GB one (5400 RPM). $50.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136129

Paul
Click to expand...

Thank you very much Paul, you are giving me a lot more confidence: I'll give
them a try.

Cheers,

S
 
Paul said:
For the GX270, that would depend to some extent on the modes supported
in the BIOS, for the ICH5 Southbridge SATA and IDE ports.

Intel has a mode called "Compatible", and that makes a SATA
drive look identical to an IDE drive. Compatible allows the usage
of four of the potential six spots for drives. Your Dell may not
have implemented all six anyway, and only provided four places
for drives. If such is the case, the Compatible setting
may be available to you, and not upset anything. It might even
already be in Compatible mode, or not even bother to mention
it is using Compatible mode all the time. If the motherboard
has room to plug in six drives, then the settings in the BIOS
should be a bit more complicated.

The second mode you can get on ICH5, is "Native". That moves the
interface for the drive, into the PCI address space. A slightly
different driver is used, but if you're already running a
recent Service Pack for WinXP, you might already be all set there.

The beauty about trying these things, is "cloning" doesn't hurt
anything. You copy the entire old drive, to the new one. Disconnect
the old drive, for the boot attempt, then try to boot with the new
drive. If you got it wrong somehow, you can always go back to the
original drive, then ask around for suggestions. So it's not
like the attempt is destructive or anything. It's just like
making a backup.

Intel chipsets can have other modes, with names like "AHCI" or
"RAID". Those may require pressing F6 and installing a driver
on a floppy, at the beginning of the Windows install. There are
sometimes recipes, for getting around the installation issue in
that case, but the procedures can be pretty complicated. As
far as I know, you shouldn't need any of that complication,
for your currently planned cloning attempts.

In any case, as long as you can find an easy way to do the drive
copying, you should be all set. There has got to be at least
one USB to SATA/IDE adapter that isn't a dud, out there.

I can't promise how the Inspiron BIOS is going to behave,
if you connect a much larger drive. If you don't really need
the space that badly, I'd just go with a 120GB sized one
(to stay under 137GB). Actually, the drive with the best
ratings, in the IDE category of 2.5" drives on Newegg, is
an 80GB one (5400 RPM). $50.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136129

Paul
Click to expand...

Right,

I've got myself a WD 80gig drive for the laptop as you recommended, and got
a usb enclosure to go with it.
From the thread on fitting new drives, I got the address for the WD version
of Acronis, and downloaded it, but it won't complete its install unless I
have a WD drive fitted! The drive only shows as a generic USB drive in
device manager, so I guess that is why WD think I don't have a WD drive
fitted. Have I been sold a fake drive (It only shows as 76gig), or is this
just WD being silly in assuming people will never install via usb?

Cheers,

S
 
spamlet said:
Right,

I've got myself a WD 80gig drive for the laptop as you recommended, and got
a usb enclosure to go with it.
From the thread on fitting new drives, I got the address for the WD version
of Acronis, and downloaded it, but it won't complete its install unless I
have a WD drive fitted! The drive only shows as a generic USB drive in
device manager, so I guess that is why WD think I don't have a WD drive
fitted. Have I been sold a fake drive (It only shows as 76gig), or is this
just WD being silly in assuming people will never install via usb?

Cheers,

S
Click to expand...

OK, I took a bit of time to do some testing. I backed up my C: drive, tested
the WDC software, then restored C: so there is no junk left over.

First, I don't really find the entries in Device Manager to be that helpful.

I used a copy of Everest (storage entries), to try to get more info about
the controller on my USB to IDE enclosure. You can get a copy of the free
version of Everest here. Lavalys is still selling this program, and the
modern version has a lot more stuff in it, than this version does. But
this version is free.

http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

*******

In Device Manager, I have one entry

USB Mass Storage Device
driver = usbstor.sys

In Everest, I see an entry in the storage section, for

Cypress AT2LP RC42 (that is a USB to IDE chip)
VID=04b4 PID=6830 Rev=0420

You can gets VID and PID values for USB devices here.
This allows you to double check the info. This list is
informally maintained, and there is no guarantee that
all USB devices ever made, are listed here. The official
list is kept private.

http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids

6830 CY7C68300A EZ-USB AT2 USB 2.0 to ATA/ATAPI

Now, under the "Disk Drives" section of my Device Manager, I have
this, and I suspect this is critical to my success.

WDC AC24 300L USB Device

The hard drive is actually a AC24300 4.3GB IDE hard drive from 1999.
It's the only WDC drive I own.

That is my hardware summary. The important part seems to be, my
USB to IDE controller is able to make a "Disk Drives" entry with
the word "WDC" in it appear. I don't know if your situation is
different or not.

*******

Now the software tests.

The Acronis for my drive, is the file "tih_s_e.exe" size 126,924,016 bytes.

http://download.wdc.com/atiwd/tih_s_e.exe

First, I tried to install it, with the USB-IDE enclosure turned off.
The installer refused, saying I had no Western Digital drive.

I switched on the drive, and this time, the Acronis installer
agreed to install the software. I didn't actually test the software,
because I believe you were getting stuck at the installation stage,
and that was enough testing for me. After a reboot, I was able to
start the Acronis program without a problem. But there didn't appear
to be anything worth testing in there, so I quit the program. At
least the program opened OK.

Next, I tested the DataLifeGuard software for Windows.

http://download.wdc.com/windlg/windlg_121.zip

That worked fine, and could see the USB based WDC drive. I
did a Quick Test (which scanned the entire drive in fact) and
my drive passed. It's only a 4.3GB drive, so no big deal.

Next, I tried the DataLifeGuard MSDOS version. Now, it isn't likely
that DOS would have a USB driver, and the WDC floppy didn't let me down.

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.zip

The floppy installed OK. I booted with the floppy, but the
executable on the floppy could not see a WDC drive.

Next, I booted the computer with my all-powerful Win98 prepared
MSDOS floppy. That floppy could actually read the 4GB FAT32 partition
on the USB based drive. So, seeing as I could see the files on the
drive, I tried running the executable on the other floppy (the floppy
built purely via the WDC download). The executable could be run from
the A:\ prompt no problem, but it still refused to see the drive.
It could be, the software was looking for I/O space IDE
interfaces, which were common on older motherboards. So the
test result was not particularly surprising. The software
appears to be produced by Knoll Ontrack, and WDC didn't write it.

So those are my results. The most important result, is my USB to
IDE enclosure with Cypress chip, was able to convince the Acronis
installer to work.

Try Everest, and see if the name of your drive is revealed or not.
You may also be able to determine the controller chip name and part
number.

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul said:
OK, I took a bit of time to do some testing. I backed up my C: drive,
tested
the WDC software, then restored C: so there is no junk left over.

First, I don't really find the entries in Device Manager to be that
helpful.

I used a copy of Everest (storage entries), to try to get more info about
the controller on my USB to IDE enclosure. You can get a copy of the free
version of Everest here. Lavalys is still selling this program, and the
modern version has a lot more stuff in it, than this version does. But
this version is free.

http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

*******

In Device Manager, I have one entry

USB Mass Storage Device
driver = usbstor.sys

In Everest, I see an entry in the storage section, for

Cypress AT2LP RC42 (that is a USB to IDE chip)
VID=04b4 PID=6830 Rev=0420

You can gets VID and PID values for USB devices here.
This allows you to double check the info. This list is
informally maintained, and there is no guarantee that
all USB devices ever made, are listed here. The official
list is kept private.

http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids

6830 CY7C68300A EZ-USB AT2 USB 2.0 to ATA/ATAPI

Now, under the "Disk Drives" section of my Device Manager, I have
this, and I suspect this is critical to my success.

WDC AC24 300L USB Device

The hard drive is actually a AC24300 4.3GB IDE hard drive from 1999.
It's the only WDC drive I own.

That is my hardware summary. The important part seems to be, my
USB to IDE controller is able to make a "Disk Drives" entry with
the word "WDC" in it appear. I don't know if your situation is
different or not.

*******

Now the software tests.

The Acronis for my drive, is the file "tih_s_e.exe" size 126,924,016
bytes.

http://download.wdc.com/atiwd/tih_s_e.exe

First, I tried to install it, with the USB-IDE enclosure turned off.
The installer refused, saying I had no Western Digital drive.

I switched on the drive, and this time, the Acronis installer
agreed to install the software. I didn't actually test the software,
because I believe you were getting stuck at the installation stage,
and that was enough testing for me. After a reboot, I was able to
start the Acronis program without a problem. But there didn't appear
to be anything worth testing in there, so I quit the program. At
least the program opened OK.

Next, I tested the DataLifeGuard software for Windows.

http://download.wdc.com/windlg/windlg_121.zip

That worked fine, and could see the USB based WDC drive. I
did a Quick Test (which scanned the entire drive in fact) and
my drive passed. It's only a 4.3GB drive, so no big deal.

Next, I tried the DataLifeGuard MSDOS version. Now, it isn't likely
that DOS would have a USB driver, and the WDC floppy didn't let me down.

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.zip

The floppy installed OK. I booted with the floppy, but the
executable on the floppy could not see a WDC drive.

Next, I booted the computer with my all-powerful Win98 prepared
MSDOS floppy. That floppy could actually read the 4GB FAT32 partition
on the USB based drive. So, seeing as I could see the files on the
drive, I tried running the executable on the other floppy (the floppy
built purely via the WDC download). The executable could be run from
the A:\ prompt no problem, but it still refused to see the drive.
It could be, the software was looking for I/O space IDE
interfaces, which were common on older motherboards. So the
test result was not particularly surprising. The software
appears to be produced by Knoll Ontrack, and WDC didn't write it.

So those are my results. The most important result, is my USB to
IDE enclosure with Cypress chip, was able to convince the Acronis
installer to work.

Try Everest, and see if the name of your drive is revealed or not.
You may also be able to determine the controller chip name and part
number.

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed reply again Paul. We seem to have hit on solutions
via different routes, probably mostly as my laptop is a bit old and rickety!

As I said, I got my new WD drive in a nice Sumvision external enclosure
which came very neatly packaged with all the assembly kit even down to
screwdriver and spare screws! However the drive wasn't recognised as WD in
the usb housing, so the WD prog would not install however I powered up and
tweaked etc.

So I downloaded the free/trial version of Acronis and set to work with that.
It took almost an hour to download - which should have had me suspicious -
but once down it seemed to install allright.

Still couldn't see the externally mounted drive in explorer but after I
initialised it and gave it a couple of basic partitions it then showed up.
Next I tried to clone from the old internal drive to the new one in the
enclosure, and it seemed to be doing it until it got to the reboot stage,
whereupon the laptop went into black screen mode with a very slow flashing
of the drive light. I waited for an hour or two wondering whether it was
doing anything (checkdisc takes ages on this so I am used to waiting), but
in the end I had a googling via another laptop and found that Acronis advise
*putting the new drive in the laptop first*, and then cloning in from the
original moved to the external enclosure (NOW they tell me!).

So turn off and try to make a bootable disc, only to find laptop has only a
cd-rom and can't write to discs!
Next then, download second copy of TI 'free' to newer laptop and burn a boot
disc there...
Boot disc to old laptop, and swap drives over.
Boot disc boots old laptop BUT image is too big for screen and I cannot get
at the 'Proceed'/'Cancel buttons. Can't actually see much because whole
screen is covered in diagonal grey dashed lines, and flickering!
After many hours of random clicking and guessing where the proceed button
might be, I finally must have hit something around 3am that was the right
button, and off it started, only to tell me a few minutes later that I was
attempting to do something that was not allowed with the free version!!!

Give up for night screaming and tearing out hair...

Next day, go to pc, and BUY full version of Acronis TI 2010, and make boot
disc. This time it says 'Full Version'...
Slap this into old laptop and rather alarmingly, first boot fails with an
error code, but second go Acronis boots.
Still alarmingly screen is still flickering and covered in diagonal grey
dashed lines and is still too big too see the proceed button!
This time I can't even drag to resize either!
However, some vague dos memory kicked in and I tried some key combinations
and found that wonder of wonders Alt 'P' was the key combination for
'Proceed' and proceed it at last did. It said '2hrs remaining' for about 4
1/2 hours just to copy 16gig, but there seemed to be only one error.
Possibly had I waited this long in the first place, when I had that black
screen it might have worked as well but who can wait for a black screen?

Anyhow, rebooted, and it now feels marvellous, the new drive is quiet as a
mouse and it is a great relief not to have infernal clicking going on all
the time from the HDD. Oddly enough even the screen seems brighter and
sharper, and everything is loading and unloading much more quickly.

Virgin mail has packed up again but what the hell it's nice to be up to
speed on the laptop at last, so many thanks for all your advice.

I still have the PC drive to update, but surely that will be a doddle
compared with the above (Won't it?)!

I'll keep you posted,
Cheers,
S
 
Paul said:
LOL :-)

Yes, this is the way PCs work.

It's why all computer users eventually end up bald.
Click to expand...

Paul



Now I think I've just about finished swapping the 40 gig eide drive on our
Dell Optiplex 270 for a WD 500gig one.

In this case I used a USB-Sata adaptor, and True Image could this time see
the drive externally, even though it was only visible in disc management. I
didn't need to initialise it, and there wasn't a diagnostics partition to
bother about.

The clone to the external drive proceeded properly and at the reboot stage
it had a blue graphical screen instead of the scary black one I got when I
tried it that way round on the laptop.

On the other hand, I got a bit of a shock when I swapped the drives over and
tried to boot: 'no disc'.
Turned out one had to go into the bios and turn off the eide settings and on
the sata.
Then there was still a glitch when it said the registry was corrupted... but
it found a back up version.
Then Avast and Spybot wouldn't work: had to be reinstalled.
Then MS did a massive update...

And now it's working. :-)

It's not quite as fast as I was hoping for after the experience with the
laptop, and this WD drive seems to be quite a bit louder in its motor noise
than I was expecting too: they must put better ones in the 'MyBook'
enclosures (though, thinking about it, I've got them running on a coaster
with bubble wrap under it...) But it feels good to see so much free space
and not to have to worry about seizing things up with an ill thought out
download.

Thanks for your help once again.

S
 
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