So I have a laptop with XP that may not be working. Can one of these SATA stations retrieve the data from it without having to boot up the machine?
Leon S wrote:
A few years back, our home was struck by lightening and we lost our computers and a lot of other items. What wasn't backed up and stored unplugged from the wall was lost. We paid a service $95 dollars to retrieve info on one machine. A few days ago my lap top mother board fried. Instead of paying another $95 dollars to try to retrieve what wasn't already backed up, I bought a Sata docking station for $35. It was easy to remove the lap top hard drive and recover the unsaved info onto my desk top. Now for $35 I have my info and a cheep portable hard drive for future use. These docking stations are available for almost all hard drives. If your not a computer geek, you may not have known about this alternative.
A few years back, our home was struck by lightenin... (
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gemlenz wrote:
So I have a laptop with XP that may not be working. Can one of these SATA stations retrieve the data from it without having to boot up the machine?
Maybe, usually you can extract the hard drive from under a cover underneath the laptop. The reason the answer is maybe as it could be a sata or pata/ide hard drive.
Don't worry, you can get usb to sata or ide or both
gemlenz wrote:
So I have a laptop with XP that may not be working. Can one of these SATA stations retrieve the data from it without having to boot up the machine?
Maybe, usually you can extract the hard drive from under a cover underneath the laptop. The reason the answer is maybe as it could be a sata or pata/ide hard drive.
Don't worry, you can get usb to sata or ide or both
blackest wrote:
Maybe, usually you can extract the hard drive from under a cover underneath the laptop. The reason the answer is maybe as it could be a sata or pata/ide hard drive.
Don't worry, you can get usb to sata or ide or both
Keep in mind, all I did was to take out the sata hard drive from my lap top and placing it into a docking station. By doing this I essentially made made a portable hard drive. Then I connected it to a working computer. All I did was salvage a good hard drive from a dead lap top and was able to get my pictures and documents onto a working computer. Hopefully this trick I picked up maybe will benefit others like me that are not that computer smart. Good Night.
Here's a different angle, but similar problem. I have a 1TB Western Digital external drive (backed up, fortunately). In the midst of trying to rearrange my work desk, I accidentally knocked the drive off its shelf. It fell about two feet or so before hitting the floor and it didn't sound like a very hard hit. However, the drive began to de-boot. After checking to see that my backups are fine, I reformatted the drive, setting the software to block any damaged sectors. After this, the drive began to work - for a while - and then started to dropping off-line. Rebooting the computer would bring it back up, but after a time, the drive would again un-mount itself. I have found some very nice prices on bare drives and I've wondered whether it would be feasible to get a new drive and put that into the old enclosure. And whether I could put, say, a 2 to 4 TB drive into an enclosure that once held a 1 tTB drive. As in, is there something in the enclosure's electronics that limits it to a particular size drive. (BTW, this is NOT a boot drive, just a data drive)
Indi
Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.
JaiGieEse wrote:
Here's a different angle, but similar problem. I have a 1TB Western Digital external drive (backed up, fortunately). In the midst of trying to rearrange my work desk, I accidentally knocked the drive off its shelf. It fell about two feet or so before hitting the floor and it didn't sound like a very hard hit. However, the drive began to de-boot.
If the drive is not powered or energized and you drop it you probably won't damage it. Damage occurs when your drive(s) are running, and you drop it while you have energy running through it.
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After checking to see that my backups are fine, I reformatted the drive, setting the software to block any damaged sectors. After this, the drive began to work - for a while - and then started to dropping off-line.
If you don't mind me saying so, this was your first mistake. Any sign of a damaged or dying drive and you should IMMEDIATELY replace it, especially if you can still run it and collect data from it.
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Rebooting the computer would bring it back up, but after a time, the drive would again un-mount itself. I have found some very nice prices on bare drives and I've wondered whether it would be feasible to get a new drive and put that into the old enclosure. And whether I could put, say, a 2 to 4 TB drive into an enclosure that once held a 1 tTB drive. As in, is there something in the enclosure's electronics that limits it to a particular size drive. (BTW, this is NOT a boot drive, just a data drive)
Here's a different angle, but similar problem. I h... (
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An external drive is merely an internal HD enclosed in a separate enclosure. You shouldn't have any problems putting a new drive in unless there is some sort of sealing that was installed by the manufacturer to deter you from fiddling with the drive.
NOTE: I inserted some comments within the body of your text.
JaiGieEse wrote:
Here's a different angle, but similar problem. I have a 1TB Western Digital external drive (backed up, fortunately). In the midst of trying to rearrange my work desk, I accidentally knocked the drive off its shelf. It fell about two feet or so before hitting the floor and it didn't sound like a very hard hit. However, the drive began to de-boot. After checking to see that my backups are fine, I reformatted the drive, setting the software to block any damaged sectors. After this, the drive began to work - for a while - and then started to dropping off-line. Rebooting the computer would bring it back up, but after a time, the drive would again un-mount itself. I have found some very nice prices on bare drives and I've wondered whether it would be feasible to get a new drive and put that into the old enclosure. And whether I could put, say, a 2 to 4 TB drive into an enclosure that once held a 1 tTB drive. As in, is there something in the enclosure's electronics that limits it to a particular size drive. (BTW, this is NOT a boot drive, just a data drive)
Here's a different angle, but similar problem. I h... (
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That is another "maybe"... Whether or not your new drive will work in the old enclosure depends on the maximum size the enclosure is designed to support. On one hand, the MFR may have used the cheapest enclosure that would do the job in which case it may just support up to 1TB...You could try it and see.....The good news is that these enclosures are not expensive and can be found as low as $10-$20...So even if you buy a bare drive and it does not work in your enclosure, you can get one that WILL work very easily...
tradergeorge wrote:
That is another "maybe"... Whether or not your new drive will work in the old enclosure depends on the maximum size the enclosure is designed to support. On one hand, the MFR may have used the cheapest enclosure that would do the job in which case it may just support up to 1TB...You could try it and see.....The good news is that these enclosures are not expensive and can be found as low as $10-$20...So even if you buy a bare drive and it does not work in your enclosure, you can get one that WILL work very easily...
That is another "maybe"... Whether or no... (
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This thread may be interesting.
http://superuser.com/questions/308492/is-there-a-size-limit-on-external-usb-hard-drivesQuote:
br "USB's limit is the limit of its mass-sto... (
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In English some of the enclosures I have which are pretty old might not support drives bigger than 2TB (pretty sure I don't have any that have drives that are less than a GB in capacity). Chances are any that you buy these days will support any size drive you have.
blackest wrote:
In English some of the enclosures I have which are pretty old might not support drives bigger than 2TB (pretty sure I don't have any that have drives that are less than a GB in capacity). Chances are any that you buy these days will support any size drive you have.
This drive is about three to four years old. What I am wondering is whether there is something, software or hardware, built into the enclosure itself that limits the size drive that it will support.
Methinks I need to shoot a line to the folks at WD.
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