enclosureslaptopportable-harddrivesata
I will be going out of the country for a couple of months, and most of my stuff will go in storage. I will be taking my laptop, and will be keeping the desktop back at home.
I was thinking of taking the harddrive from my desktop with me, since I have stored a lot of media on it, which I'll like to watch.
Is there any adapter/connector/enclosure, with which I can connect the desktop hard disk to my Laptop? I have seen similar enclosures for laptop hard disks, but none for desktop hard disks.
It turned out that the USB 3 extension cable I've been using cannot deliver the needed power. Not sure why that is, but it seems the cable wasn't designed for power as well as signal. I actually spoke to the manufacturer and despite the technician telling me the cable is rated to deliver over an amp, I tested it and it doesn't.
So what I did was just plug the drive straight into the USB 3 card installed through PCIe and it works fine. As X: it also works fine in the USB 3 port on my laptop.
I think I might get another USB 3 cable to see if I can get it to work.
Thanks for the help.
Based on the model number of HTS543232L9A300 on that label the drive is a Hitachi Travelstar 320GB 5400 RPM SATA 2.5" laptop hard drive.
But that is definitely not a standard SATA connector; I bet that thing connected to it is some kind of laptop connector interposer/bridge. I would see if you can pull that off because I am pretty confident that beneath it there is a standard SATA connector.
Just look at these images I snagged off of a similar model on eBay; clearly comes with standard SATA.
EDIT: Since the original poster says the connector is part of the main logic board on the drive, another idea would be to simply purchase another logic board for the same exact model but make sure it has SATA connectors. Mind you this should be considered a last resort effort since sometimes the logic board connected to a drive could be fine tuned specifically for that exact disk stack. But if you feel you have no other choice, get a logic board from a similar drive & then just swap that in to see what happens.
Best Answer
The SATA Dock's in Bruno's post are fine for a static system, but with your laptop you'll very likely be moving around. Possibly even using it on the move!
An external USB caddy for the Desktop (3.5") Hard Drive would be a better option - they're more robust, made to be portable and at least give the drive some protection from shocks (& movement).
Depending on where you're travelling (ie somewhere hot!) you may even want to get one with a cooling fan integrated into the unit to preserve the life of your hard drive.