Porch Enclosure

So, I have a 320GB WD Scorpio black in a usb powered enclosure. I was using it as a backup drive.

But now, when I try to get the files off of it, it doesn’t want to work. When transfering files from the drive to my pc, the Estimated Time Remaining dialogue box will freeze up after a few seconds, and the drive will start to click. It’s just a small, quiet click every 30 seconds or so. But no more data transfers, and I cannot cancel the transfer or do anything with it other than unplugging the drive from the USB.

I had considered that it may be a power issue. But the drive itself works, I can access the files on the drive 90% of the time without error, I just can’t transfer them. I am using a Y split usb, on usb 2.0 ports. Unfortunately I am also using Vista, if this makes a difference.

I have tried the freezer trick as well. It worked on one folder, but hasn’t worked since.

What can I do?

Are you trying to transfer huge files (let’s say files over 4gb) at the same time? Like copying a huge selection of files to transfer I think that would caused the freeze; maybe if you try transferring small files one at a time… maybe that’l work… if that’s the case.

Ones that advertise compatibility with 2.5" drives, those are the ones in laptops.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182138

Drives these days are SATA but for an older IDE laptop drive, you’d want an enclosure with the IDE interface.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145136

Hi there,

I’d like to ask for advice on this since I’m pretty ##### that my data HDD just seem to have failed and I had 300GB of stuff on it.

OK, so my problem is now that Windows won’t boot unless I unplug my data (secondary) HDD; my primary or BOOT drive is an SSD and no problem with it.

Now, I’ve read that we can sometimes recover data from a dead drive by using a drive USB enclosure since it allows you to hot plug the drive once your OS is up and running.

My worries are that OK, it will allow me to plug it after a successful boot, but isn’t it almost the same as having it as a secondary drive (slave?) which is already the setup I’ve been using for months?

I mean, if it is just data on the drive and it prevents windows from booting, chances are that hot plugging it through USB will just bring errors as well or even something like the drive is not formatted error message?

A few additional details:
I’m using XP home and a 80GB SSD for boot.
The ‘dead’ drive is a 320GB caviar which is pretty full’ I tried to do a de-fragmentation on it a few weeks ago and it didn’t go through because too full.
Yesterday I deleted some 10GB from it which would give about 18GB free space on it if I remember well.
Lately, I observed that my transfer speed to that drive were getting slower (I should have stopped right there - I know!!) but I was receiving no other sign of a dying drive.

So what’s your take on this? USB drive enclosure has some chance of success or not? I’m sure that for the price vs 300GB of data, it’s worth a try anyway, but I want to hear from you on real life experiences on this.

Thanks
thanks for answer keep them coming!! A1: No jumper I believe it’s a SATA drive. A2: Have you ever undeleted 300GB of data? That could take months to do I think because I’ve tried just a few videos (100MB total) before and it took over an hour…
Edit #2:

OK, I took apart 2 of portable 2.5" HDD I had here and with one of them, I could fit its board to my SATA ‘dead’ drive [in other words, I made my own "SATA to USB adapter" or "drive enclosure" ]
I hooked up some power with a 4-pin connector from my PSU and plugged the drive+board into USB and voilà! There were all my files!! - I’m a happy camper!!

So now I’m going shopping for at a new (of at least 1TB) HDD drive….

Thanks again for the answers again.

The USB interface is different than the internal connection, so you should be OK if the drive is still good. You will probably need to change the jumper to Master.
In any case, the attempt will do no harm.

I am going to use a USB enclosure to extract info off a hard drive of a laptop that the screen died.

I was wondering if someone could recommend one to me ? There are many out there that will work for what I need but the problem is it seems most don’t work with windows 7(at least these are the complaints I keep seeing)

If anyone knows of that works with windows 7 and also compatible to these specs: 2.5 & 3.5 inch SATA would so appreciate if you could tell me =]

Thank you !
@At Fig-Azi: These reviews were from buyers on Amazon.com. Thank you for your information. Maybe these people had their stuff formatted in the way you said then.
*Fug(sorry)

Any external hard drive will work with windows 7, the only way you might have problems is if you format the drive in a way that windows can’t read it ie OSX or certain Linux formats. Don’t know where you have been reading but it sounds like BS to me.

will external USB enclosures allow me to backup my ps3’s hard drive on to my laptop’s hard drive?
ylod on my 80gig cechl01

yup. i use a bt-300 from topmicrousa and i would suggest you check it out as well. very good product and its really cheap. works like a charm.

if you need any more help feel free to send me an email and ill be happy to help \(^_^)/

i took out my hard drive from my ps3 which is broke now, and if i put the hard drive in a different ps3 to get my downloads, and music and videos from it, to copy it to a usb from the ps3, the new ps3 asks me to configure it (which will clear everything off of it) so i bought a external hard drive enclosure, and hooked the hard drive up to my hp laptop, now I’m wondering how to explore it to get everything off of it

well since it’s a PS3 hard drive you could just plug the enclosure into your laptop and view the files from that. if it wasnt a ps3 hard drive it would have an operating system installed onto it making things alot harder

I can’t figure out how to plug in my Toshiba HDD into an USB enclosure. What am I missing? Can someone please give me a step my step analysis? It’s from my laptop so it’s a 2.5"

You will need an adapter that fits ton the back of the laptop drive to conver to standard IDE interface….

what is it? and how does it work? and i will be able to go get my files without my laptop starting up to its windows?

A usb hard drive enclosure is where you put another hard drive into and then connect it to a computer via usb. If your laptop has an internal hard drive (hard drive in it already), then your computer will automatically boot to the internal one and you should be able to get the files off the hard drive in the enclosure by going to it in windows explorer. It should be drive D or E, drive c is the internal hard drive.

I have a used laptop hard driver in an ide to usb enclosure. After installing drivers the laptop drive appears in "My Computer." When I click to access the drive a window appears saying "The disk in drive H: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" I do not want to format it now or ever, for that matter.

THe laptop drive is connected to a desktop via ide to usb enclosure. THe computer it is connected to is running Windows 98.

Also, a side note. THe usb cable supplied with the enclosure has a usb plug on one end and 2 usb plugs on the other. Why is that?
THanks

Its possible that the disk has no file system on it so it cant write data to it until it does.

So do i take my hardrive and insert it into the Usb external enclosure? Does it connect to my other computer? With a wire ? does it come with one if i buy it.?
My laptop hardrive is for gateway and it says 5v 1.0A 80 gb so how do i know which one to buy so it can read it? i see some that say 2.0? look check the link out please http://www.bing.com/shopping/search?q=external+USB+enclosure&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-22

You are looking for a 2.5" enclosure for a laptop hard drive. You have to match the type of connector your drive is - either IDE or SATA, you didn’t provide enough information in the question. With an 80 GB hard drive it is more likely to be IDE but check with your gateway specifications.

This will hook up to another computer by a USB 2.0 connection and you should be able to see your files. The enclosure should come with a USB cable, and the connection to the hard drive inside the enclosure. It takes 2 - 6 screws to put the drive into the enclosure you will need a small Philips screwdriver.