Posted by Dave Cohen on 11/29/06 21:01

Jon wrote:
> Flarky <yubbers9@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I bought a 40 gig hard drive for a laptop computer once,
>> and I've since sold the laptop but not the drive.
>> It's a good Hitachi drive, with a parallel interface and
>> probably has data on it that I can use or need.
>>
>> However I can't make use of the drive.
>
> Have you seen the USB <--> PATA and SATA cables you can get with
> contacts for both 2.5 and 3.5" disks, complete with external power
> supply for 3.5" drives?
>
> Very, very handy for the occasional backup or restore operation or data
> rescue. For continuous operation or frequent use I would go for an
> enclosure because of the wear and tear on the disk's pins, but apart
> from that this belongs in any IT person's toolkit, IMHO.

I looked at those, you can do a web search and find a usb to drive cable
(some with 2 connectors for different pinout). They also come with ps
and connector for 5v plug on drive. Not very neat but presume they will
do the job. The catch is they run close to $30 retail. Ebay show a whole
bunch. With postage they should run under $20 if you like dealing with ebay.
Dave Cohen

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