How $19.99 saved me a few thousand dollars
When computer technology advances, I don’t simply move on. I’m known for keeping old, functioning computer gear for years.
In the case of my original laptop – a 2004 Compaq I’ll affectionately call “The Brick” – the gear itself hasn’t quite gone out of fashion. I recently doubled its RAM to 2 Gb and the installed Windows XP 64bit still delivers some good performance.
Not only do I like “The Brick” for its sturdy construction and sheer weight, but it has a tall, non-reflective wide screen. When I shopped for a new laptop early this year, every single model had a reflective screen; I ended up buying a lightweight SONY VAIO that shines like a mirror when sunlight hits it.
Back to “The Brick”. As the old faithful alternative to my main box, “The Brick” worked particularly well, even gained a secondary partition with Ubuntu Linux along the way.
But I never expected to wake up one morning and find a “black screen of hardware death” on its screen, the drive spinning with the sound of a lawnmower cutting through an Amazonian weed forest.
The drive was unbootable, spinning on its axis all while screeching. On it were several hundred indispensable family photos, that I had never thought of backing up to another medium. Somehow, due to the non-continuous use of “The Brick”, I foolishly believed that the hard drive would outlast the OS installed on it, but Bill Gates had to prove me wrong.
I searched for data restoration services; each and every one of them offered to do the job for no less than $1,000 – the cost would rise to $1,500 if certain mechanical issues were involved. Although one cannot put a price on hundreds of family photos, tossing a grand plus out of the window didn’t seem like the last option I should have.
Upon attempting to boot, the drive took a lot of stress, so I wondered how it’d behave as a secondary drive. Lo and behold, I searched on Amazon.com for hardware cases that’d allow me to plug the laptop drive to my main box as an external device.
After some research, I decided against the generic drive cases, as most of them have no power supply of their own, relying completely on USB power and also they are specific to the type of one’s drive; in my case, an old 80Gb PATA made by Toshiba.
Further research took me to this wonderful multi-function connector that cost $19.99 and free ground shipping. The device supports 2.5″ (laptop) and 3.5″ drives, both IDE/PATA and SATA connectors and it came in a nice box with all the necessary cables and connectors. Quite possibly, the best item I’ve received this year with a Made in China stamp on it.
The manufacturer can be found at Sabrent.com
After plugging the adapter into the mains, I connected the drive to its power supply. The drive chirped rather pleasantly; the USB 2.0 cable was connected to my main box and sure enough, the drive was seen by Windows and everything was found in place, fully intact.
I backed up all the photos and other files that I had forgotten they existed; overall a great investment that saved me several thousand dollars and a whole lot of stress.
A must-have gadget to be used as the last resort before emptying your bank account in order to hand the drive over to expensive data recovery services!
