USB SATA?

JokkeJokke Bergen, Norway Icrontian
edited August 2007 in Hardware
OK, title may be a bit misleading, but I don't know how to express myself better. Here's the deal: my video card just died on my old computer, and it boots but there is no way that I can see anything. The screen is just black. I have tested the screen with another computer and it works. I wont bother to buy a new card because it's time for a new computer. However, there are some things on my SATA hard drive that I would like to get. My question is if it's possible to somehow convert the sata to a USB (by using a cable or something). I have heard something about making a SATA drive to an external HD. Is it possible?

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2007
    Jokke wrote:
    OK, title may be a bit misleading, but I don't know how to express myself better. Here's the deal: my video card just died on my old computer, and it boots but there is no way that I can see anything. The screen is just black. I have tested the screen with another computer and it works. I wont bother to buy a new card because it's time for a new computer. However, there are some things on my SATA hard drive that I would like to get. My question is if it's possible to somehow convert the sata to a USB (by using a cable or something). I have heard something about making a SATA drive to an external HD. Is it possible?

    Yes just get an external harddrive enclosure that supports sata drives. They are very common and almost any computer store/big box store will carry them. Quality isn't much of a factor in a given price range. The big differences as you go up the $$ scale is that they'll often switch from a plastic to steal enclosure and add a cooling fan. Just make sure you get one that is USB 2 (I doubt they even sell usb1 enclosures anymore). The other type you'll find commonly, for a little bit more will be Firewire or Dual Firewire and USB.
  • JokkeJokke Bergen, Norway Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    And then I can just plug my HD in a USB port, just like a normal eksternal HD? Awesome. Thanks!
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2007
    Jokke wrote:
    And then I can just plug my HD in a USB port, just like a normal eksternal HD? Awesome. Thanks!

    Yes then you can just plug your HDD into a USB port like a regular external drive.

    There are a couple exceptions. If your hard drive is currently in a RAID format this won't work or if it's formated NTFS and you are trying to connect it to an older version of windows (95, 98) that can't read NTFS. Odds are that you aren't in either of these cases though so you should be fine.
  • JokkeJokke Bergen, Norway Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    kryyst wrote:
    Yes then you can just plug your HDD into a USB port like a regular external drive.

    There are a couple exceptions. If your hard drive is currently in a RAID format this won't work or if it's formated NTFS and you are trying to connect it to an older version of windows (95, 98) that can't read NTFS. Odds are that you aren't in either of these cases though so you should be fine.

    Then I recon I should be fine.
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