Question 1

is this a docking station for a sata 2.5" drive? (sata to USB)

Accepted Answer

I wouldn't call it a docking station.  It's an enclosure that allows you to mount a SATA drive inside of it, so that you can use it as an external USB hard drive.  I used it when I upgraded a hard drive on a laptop.  Basically, I removed the original drive, and mounted into this enclosure.  You plug the hard drive into a circuit board in this enclosure, and then use the tiny screws provided to screw a plastic cap over the end of the enclosure.  Then, ta da! you have an external USB drive.

Question 2

Will this transfer data both ways?? or just from a computer to a hard drive inside this case. I have a laptop that wont boot into windows and i want to use this to take data from the hard drive to a working computer

Accepted Answer

This is just the enclosure.  It takes a 2.5 SATA hardrive.  Once you put a hardrive/ssd into the enclosure it'll work like any external harddrive.

So if the laptop drive is a SATA drive and you put it into this case you could take the Vantec to a working computer and salvage the data from the drive or use the drive to store additional data. (it'll write both ways).

IMPORTANT NOTE:  This enclosure come with a "Y" USB cable.  There are two full size usb plugs on one end and a mini usb on the other end.  The mini usb plugs into the enclosure and the two fullsize USB plugs MUST BOTH BE PLUGGED IN TO YOUR COMPUTER otherwise your computer will issue an overvoltage alert and possibly shutdown. So make sure the computer you'll use this with have enough USB ports.

Hope that helps!

-mark

Question 3

can i  use my desk top internal hard drive for  the enclosure to  use  it on my  laptop?

Accepted Answer

This enclosure is made for 2.5 inch SATA drives, which are common to LAPTOPS.  Most DESKTOP hard drives are of the 3.5 inch variety.  Unless you know for a fact that your desktop has a 2.5 inch SATA drive, it will not work.

What you're proposing is not a bad idea.  I've recycled hard drives like this, myself.  You'll just need the right size enclosure.  3.5 inch drive enclosures are readily available.

Note, too, that older desktops (and laptops) may have EIDE connections vice SATA.  You'll need to determine that before you order.  In a desktop, a wide flat data cable would indicate EIDE.

I'd recommend that you look at (or even pull) the hard drive in your desktop before you order.  If it's about the size of a small paperback book, it's the 3.5 inch variety.  If it's considerably smaller (about a quarter the size), it's a 2.5 inch.  The difference will be obvious.

Then verify the type of connection by looking at the hard drive manufacturer's label.  It should read either External IDE (EIDE) or Serial ATA (SATA).  If it's not obvious, google the hard drive model number for the specs.  This is the best way to ensure the right enclosure.

My thoughts.

Question 4

I have a sata hard drive in a computer with a blown video card; I don't want to replace the video card as the computer is old and will be replaced shortly.I do want to access some of the data on this hard drive using my laptop. Will this do what I want - allow me to plug the hard drive into my laptop to transfer the data I want?

Accepted Answer

This enclosure is for a laptop sized hard drive (2.5"). A standard sized hard drive out of a desktop (3.5") will not fit into it. If it is a 2.5" hard drive from your computer, you would have to remove it from the mounting adapter, then this product would work. If you have a standard 3.5" hard drive, USB enclosures are available for those as well.

Question 5

Is the hard drive itself 750 GB, and does it hold movies and shows well?

Accepted Answer

This is an empty box with connections for an owner supplied hard drive.  You must purchase and install the 2.5" hard drive of your choice. Yes you can install a drive large enough to hold movies.

Question 6

my windows vista computer from 2009....tries to start....but wont come up...if I place hard drive from it in external device and attach it to a screen will i be able to look up and recover files?

Accepted Answer

In theory you could put a separate bootable drive in the enclosure and tell your computer to boot off of it. However, getting it to boot correctly is usually very difficult since typically the OS expects to be booted off of an internal drive and the drive IDs change with USB. While I wouldn't say it is impossible, it is probably not for the faint of heart.

A more successful route would be to remove the hard drive from your system, place it in an enclosure, and attach that enclosure to a working system. Then you could pull the old files off. If you don't have a working system, then I would suggest purchasing a new drive, installing it in the failed system, installing an OS on the new drive, then attaching the enclosure to that now bootable system and pulling files.

Many major manufacturers also provide a recovery partition. If that is miraculously in-tact (which is not impossible), it might be worth using something like EASUS Disk Copy (free) to mirror to a new drive placed into an enclosure. Once done, take the new drive out of the enclosure and put it into your PC, then boot it using rescue mode (which you'd have to look up from the manufacturer). Once you have this "rescued" PC, you can attach the old drive via an enclosure and copy off files.

All of this easier said than done of course.

Question 7

I'm looking for a Laptop HDD External Enclosure for my HDD I took out from a broken HP DV1060US Laptop. Can I use this one?

Accepted Answer

I tried to look up that model but couldn't find details on the hard drive interface from HP.  What I did find is that the hard drive caddy replacement is IDE so I suspect that it is an IDE 2.5 drive.   This enclosure supports a SATA 2.5 drive.  As an example if you check out this Hard drive from Newegg, just search this for this part number N82E16822152289, the ports on picture of that hard drive will fit in the enclosure. If your hard drive has the same ports, it will fit. But if yours doesn't have those ports as listed on the example  then this,  part # N82E16817182145,  would be the enclosure that would work.  I hope this helps.

Question 8

i have a 1 tb laptop harddrive can i use this????

Accepted Answer

Yes, though it needs to be a standard laptop thickness of 9.5mm. The larger 12.5mm might fit, I haven't tried, but it would be risky unless you can find other information elsewhere that says contrary. There is no way a 15mm thickness drive (which some are today) will fit.

For an inexpensive enclosure, I have been very happy with the BTW.

Question 9

Hello, Does this enclosure come with a usb cable? Thanks!

Accepted Answer

Yes, it comes with a USB-Y cable (i.e. two USB connectors for the computer end, connected to the mini-USB at the external hard disk enclosure end.  They recommend plugging both USBs into the computer for sufficient power to run the external hard drive.  I have been able run it with just one plugged in, but your mileage may vary.  PS. You can see the Y cable in one of the images on the Newegg listing.

Question 10

My laptops HDD crapped out on me right before i built my gaming pc. Will this work for my HP Pavilion g6's internal HDD?

Accepted Answer

I don't think so, but you maybe able to boot and run from the USB port (Depending on the BIOS). This is only an adapter and you have to add a HDD or SSD. This adapter converts a SATA or IDE to USB. But if you pull the HDD or SSD out of the adapter you maybe able to use it. If the HDD is IDE and computer is IDE or SATA drive to a SATA computer it will plug directly in. If you have IDE HDD and SATA computer or a SATA HDD and IDE computer then you will have to use another adapter (IDE to SATA or SATA to IDE.

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