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SATA to IDE converter for external HD enclosure

Dreamkatcha

Dreamkatcha

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 17, 2003
167
0
Manchester, England
Hi,

When I sold my nasty, useless PC *spit* I transferred all the data I wanted to keep onto my second HD and kept it in a safe place with the intention of buying an external enclosure for it. Because the item description was confusing and I was in a rush, and because I'm not at all stupid, not even a little bit, I bought an IDE enclosure rather than a SATA one and now can't connect my SATA drive to my iBook. I was just wondering if anyone knows where I can buy an adapter to fit inside the enclosure without paying a small fortune.

Here's the exact model. I did email Copy Box weeks ago to ask them for their advice, but they ignored me. *Subliminal message* Don't buy anything from them, their customer service is terrible, don't even think about it *subliminal message*.
 
First of all, I'm a little confused. Do you have a serial drive and an external IDE to firewire or USB2 case? The product you linked to looked like an external serial case, but since the iBook doesn't have a serial connector, you'd need something to connect serial to firewire. Which I'm not sure if it exists or not. If you already have a case that's IDE to fw or USB2, you'd just need an IDE to serial adapter.
 
You see what I'm up against? It's not exactly obvious what you're getting. The enclosure only accepts IDE hard drives (mine is SATA), but can be connected to your PC/Mac via the ports on the back using either a USB or SATA cable. This would be fine if the drive was a standard IDE model since it could be connected to my iBook via USB. Alas when I was shopping for a new hard drive, some web site blurb about how wonderful this new future standard is, managed to convince me that SATA was the way to go. If it were possible to transfer the data from the SATA drive to my Mac I would do that and then sell it and get an ordinary IDE one which would work with my external enclosure.
 
This might work, but I'm not sure. It's designed to use IDE drives on Serial ports, so you'd have to use it backwards. Easiest way would be to see if a friend has Serial ATA on their computer and borrow it to transfer to an IDE drive. But if that's not an option, try the adapter. Maybe try to find a Serial to FW or USB2 external enclosure, though I don't think they exist yet. Good luck, and let us know what happens.
 
Nope, there is no enclosure which will let you connect a SATA drive. For music applications, I have been looking for such an enclosure (firewire interface outside - SATA inside for connecting a SATA drive which can spin upto 10,000 rpm) All you and I can do is just wait and see if someone comes out with such an enclosure, when they do..I'll be the first one to buy it!
 
Holy cow!! Thats exactly what I need..geezuz, thank you for posting that link. No one at compusa, apple store, etc could even agree to the possibility of such an enclosure..and here we have it! :) Thank you thank you thank you!
 
Yeah, forget what I said. Go with one of those. Either the converter with your own case, or the full case.
 
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