USB 2.0 to IDE / SATA Converter Cable by Eforcity - PCABUSBX0017

I bought this when I saw it on sale because I new at some point it would come in handy... Well, right now it WOULD come in handy, except it doesn't recognize the 2.5" IDE drive that's attached to it right now. The drive has power, you can hear it spinning, but no luck with XP or Vista. If you're going to buy something like this, at least buy one where the manufacturer isn't afraid of putting their name on it...
 
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This piece of junk stopped working after 1-2 uses. The quality of the power connector alone should have made me return it immediately. A horrible waste of money!
 
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Pin connector from IDE to SATA power cable is a joke. It's also an electrical hazard. No "UL" approved electrical components here. For newbies, no instructions included - you are on your own. Cost of product vs. return shipping rate makes it not worth the effort to return. I accidently purchased this for a friend thinking it was the same adapter kit I already own. Probably OK for a cheap one-time recovery but if you want "the swiss army knife of disk connectivity" google "Newer Technology USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter".
 
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Great value for the price. Complete kit with power supply, cables, etc. The adapter plastic is a bit thin feeling but sufficient for occasional usage. Fast shipping.
 
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As I write this, I've been trying to plug the connector into the power supply for about 5 minutes. The "connector" is just a very very cheap plastic housing barely holding together four different wires. The pins inside are loose and move around randomly, making it almost impossible to plug the other end of the connection in. I expected this thing to be cheap, but this is useless.
 
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As I have read that it is not a high quality product (but for the price, what do you expect) I am from the start treating it delicately. However, it works well. I tested it with a few old hard drives, all EIDE, and had some problems with Windows XP Pro recognizing the drive in explorer. It recognizes the drive, load the drivers and have it in the “disable hardware” icon and “device manager”, but it is not in “disk management” or explorer. Two of the drives worked flawlessly after I put the jumper setting on cable select. I am still trying to get into an old 1996 WD Caviar HD. I have not tested it with a SATA drive. So far it works well and I am very glad that I have it and, therefore, access to these old hard drives.
 
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I have about a dozen bare 3.5" IDE drives & this device recognizes only a few of them & only intermittently. Buy.com won't honor the warranty. They say because it came from someone else. But I paid Buy.com. Run away from this one.
 
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I bought 2 of these units at eForcity and the Power Supply died on 1 in less than a year. Also, the SATA Data Cable is not as pictured. It's only about 4 inches long, with an inch for each connector and only about 2 inches of actual cable. I state this because that doesn't give you much room or flexability. No power switch, so I have it plugged into a 4 outlet Power Strip/Surge Protector with its own power switch. On the positive side, I actually paid less than $9.00 (on sale) for both complete units; which included shipping.
 
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I am using it to connect an old hard drive as an extra storage. No problems at all; Connect to the hard drive, A.C power supply and snap in the USB connection. Why not a five? It lacks a little switch to turn it on or off, I have to disconnect power supply for that. Minor annoyance. Eforcity is excellent place to buy with quick shipping.
 
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Great price for a must have. I got all my music and pics in under 5 min. I thought they were gone forever since desktops seem to be obsolete now adays.
 
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I bought this product to move files from my old PC (the mother board fried...to my new PC. It worked very well but the connectors are VERY cheap and poorly made. I had to take it apart and re-do all of the connections myself. Once I did that, it worked well. Nice practical product, just poorly made. It worked for me....and I'm NOT a computer guy by any stretch of the imagination.
 
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My hard drive crashed and windows wouldn't boot or repair, I installed a new drive and configured it, then was able to recover all my data from the old drive via this cable...
 
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My unit was not functioning. It didn't mount or show the partitions on my Apple TV drive. It also didn't allow access to a brandnew 250 GB Western Digital 2.5" drive.
 
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It works as described. I would buy it again (on-sale). It's not the best quality but if you just need one on hand for quick infrequent use then this is a great value.
 
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Like most tools, it's better to have it when you need it. I needed it yesterday when I had a SATA harddrive that wouldn't boot. Installed a new harddrive, connected the old one to the computer with this, transferred all my data over fast. Glad I had this. Eforcity delivered quick.
 
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Works good.It does what it is supouse to do.Use as a temporarily alternative only.This is not intended for a prolongated use.For a prolongated use is better a external drive enclosure.
 
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All is good except for IDE to SATA power cable where pin connections are very loose. Burnt electronic board on the SATA hard drive. However worked very well with IDE hard drives. I was able to transfer data from old IDE hard drives to backup hard disk. I would give 5/5 for IDE drives but 2/5 for SATA because of loose pins in IDE to SATA power cable.
 
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This is just one of those things that you need from time to time to transfer data from old drives onto newer ones. It is especially useful for transferring data from IDE drives to PCs without an IDE interface. It works flawlessly and as described - and you can't beat the price.
 
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I was amazed at the price, and it works fine for me. My only issue was connecting the IDE to SATA power converter, which took some time to line up the little pins. However, was very happy with all the included cables.
 
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I had bought an external eSATA hard drive in past from buy.com. After around 10 months it stopped responding. The hard drive was getting power (i could hear it), but it was not being detected on any of my PCs. Apparently, there was some problem with enclosure connection. I could not send it to manufacturer even though it was under warranty, as it had some sensitive personal data, which i didnt want to lose. I found this product which i thought would help to get my data back. I ordered it, and completely satisfied. Not only i got my data, but i can use my hard disk now. Of course i had to break open the enclosure and it voids my warranty. But atleast my data is safe. Planning to use it for my other hard disks and DVD drive. Would definitely recommend.
 
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It's just a small and simple tool but great performance. It can continuously run over 12 hours without any weakness. Besides, it is very cheap.
 
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Picked this up for $11 on sale and its great! formatted a couple of drives and also ghosted one. Works great!
 
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Works fine, was delivered fast and the price was great. Had a question for Eforcity and they answered right away.
 
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Great accessory to have. Simple, no fuss design. Didn't have any issues with it.
 
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Fast Shipper Great Price
 
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I had one of these at work that cost 45$ and when I purchased this one I didnt think it was going to work as well due to the lower price but in fact its better than the one at work in many ways. Good purchase for me.
 
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For less than 20 bucks, you can yank out a HD from another system, get the files off of it that you need, and scan it for viruses, etc... It is as easy as that. Just plug it in. It is not designed for permamnent external HD use. Just for temporary use with a different system.
 
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I needed an adapter for a recent project I had and decided to come to Buy.com since I have had nothing but the best service from them since the beginning. Thank you once again, Buy.com. Not only did you make shopping an easy process, but you also told me it would take between 4-14 days to be delivered and it ONLY took 2 DAYS!! Wow! I will definitely continue to come back. You have a customer for life! Product is easy to use straight from the box. Great quality.
 
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I am very satisfied with the product except for the power cable. It is not well put together, loose keeps losing connection. I had to make another cable. Over all the device works well.
 
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This product is very good!!
 
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This does exactly what it's supposed to...allows connection of a "bare drive" SATA to any available USB port on computer. A little "klugy" in design, but has proven invaluable in checking out drives for my customers and transferring data from questionable drives before rebuilding them. Also really good for virus removal (as pointed out by another reviewer). Manufacturing quality iffy...connectors don't always make solid connections. Works! Recommended!
 
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Got this to get rid of a Virus. Connected the sata drive of infected computer, to usb on computer with no virus. Ran virus scanner, TaaDah! no more virus on infected hard drive. I need to give these out for Christmas!
 
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This is a fantastic tool to have and very affordable for under $15. Bought it to clone a 120gb sata hitachi in my MacBook Pro to a new WD 320gb before switching them out. All my enclosures were IDE. This worked great. I also got an old Seagate 3.5 IDE hard drive to work that no computer or enclosure would read as an internal drive. Only complaint is the flimsy power connector. The pins are so loose that it is tricky to make the connection properly. Really have to check carefully that all four pins go in. Therefore, I would not recommend this product to someone who would uses it frequently, but only to the occasional hard drive swapper such as myself.
 
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Made my old 80 gb drive easily accessable from a USB port. Simple, fast and you don't have to be a tech guy! 3 minutes from the box to full usb access. Nice!
 
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I bought the cable to pull off some data from a hard drive that had an OS that was not booting. It worked perfectly for accessing the drive, but one issue I had was that it would not stop spinning even after I tried to remove the "USB mass storage device." Also, it does get very hot when used. After a few times of using it and not being able to remove the drive properly, one of my partitions was deleted and I had to restore it. It does do its job, though.
 
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As a technician that is constantly testing, swapping and troubleshooting all kinds of drives this has been a great help. For the price there is nothing else I have found that gives me the flexibility of connecting CD/DVD drives as well as notebook and standard size hard drives (IDE and SATA) to any of my computers with a USB 2.0 port. I recently had to remove a DVD DL burner from my desktop PC in order to hook up to my Apple Powerbook G4 so I could burn a wedding video after the internal laptop burner malfunctioned. After plugging everything in it was ready to use in less than a minute.
 
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Bottom line: It just works. Having a few old hard drives lying around I needed to know if they were worth keeping or if they even worked. I was able to go through 10 drives in a very short time, finding three bad and formatting the rest. I haven't tried the SATA connector yet but no reason to think it would be any different. A "must" tool to own if you only have a laptop but a great tool to have, period!
 
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this was quite handy for me because i had a few hard drives left over from old computers that i could use as externals but buying cases would be too expensive and would only cover one of them. this was really cheap and works but sometimes it doesn't recognize the drive or says that it isn't initialized and i have to try plugging it in again. besides that it works great.
 
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Easily connected an IDE external drive to the USB port. It was automatically recognized by my Visa Home Premium operating system. Works great. Thank you.
 
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This is very simply the tool you need if you do any type of drive salvage, or troubleshooting for computers. It lets you connect to any type of drive (well, not SCSI or other oddities, but chances are, if you have one of those you're probably a rather advanced techie aren't reading this review). With the flexibility of accessing any drive, you can salvage data from where ever you need to, access something from a drive you don't plan to permanently install, or even connect a CD/DVD drive temporarily to something that doesn't have one, like a work station or server (although again, if you're doing that, you probably aren't reading this review either). Ease of use is as simple as it gets. You shouldn't have any difficulties unless you lack opposable thumbs.
 
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This is an excellent product from an excellent seller. I purchased 2 of these, one for work and one for home. This can save hours of work trying to move or recover files from a pulled hard drive.
 
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It works great. Nice for pulling data off an old hard drive via usb. Was very affordable and shipped quickly.
 
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I have used IDE to USB devices in the past. I bought this one for the SATA option, but haven't yet tested this. Great product at a great price.
 
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The product work fine with a reasonable price even made in China. Prompt delivery too.
 
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You can take any internal hard drive, ide, sata 3.5" or 2.5" and turn it into a usb drive. A very handy tool to have and can really save you. It'll make any drive work on a pc with a usb port.
 
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I am very pleased with this product especially when considering the price. The product was delivered as promised and although it did not work with every Hard Drive I had in my inventory (in all fairness some drives may have been bad)when it did work with a hard drive, the interface worked great. All of my spare drives are the old IDE drives. If you like to get your hands dirty with computers this is a great tool to have around.
 
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Great price, very quick delivery and it works!! What more can you ask for? I'm glad I bought two, a gift for the other geek in the family! Easy to use. A very handy tool for the enthusiast.
 
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Very good product. Very easy to use. I highly recommend this product.
 
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Order was shipped expeditious. Everything worked as expected. I thought that this was a good buy. Very satisfied, would recommend to others.
 
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Very easy to use. I was able to get data off of an old hard drive and move it onto my laptop, which only had USB ports. The product came with a power supply and everything connected up beautifully.
 
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The combination of these connections are great! They have already come in VERY handy and saved me not only money but also lots of hassle from having to open up a system just to get to a power source. Great way to get data off a drive!
 
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