I have an old 2.5" HDD from my now deceased laptop, andI had a lot of modding files and stuff for Morrowind that I wanted to retrieve off of it. I was wondering if it would be better to buy a USB SATA dock and use it to retrieve the data or if I could just install it as a new HDD on my PC?

It has Windows Vista on it and everything else that was on my old PC so would installing it as a new HDD mess with anything that I currently have on my PC? I'm curious because then there would be two C: drives and two D: drives. Of course I could rename the drive on my current computer, install the old HDD and rename those drives then revert my current drives back to C: and D:.

So my question is, would it be more beneficial to buy a SATA dock and use it to transfer the data or to install it as a new HDD and permanently have that data installed on my computer?

You should be fine just putting the HDD in your computer as it is. By default your PC should detect and boot from your main drive, but you may have to tell it to do that from BIOS. It shouldnt mess with anything.

If it's a 2.5'', he'll need an adapter anyway since internal bays for a desktop are usually 3.5''. Might as well get a USB 3.0 enclosure (or eSATA)

Anyway, OP, Windows will automatically rename the drive letters as appropriate. Drive letters are determined by the OS, not an actual part of the drives themselves. Also don't bother booting to the laptop drive. The mismatched drivers will probably just cause it to constantly BSOD, and even if you can boot to it, your copy of Windows on it will be invalidated.

If there is a Windows install of a non primary drive it will be inactive. It shouldn't cause any issues.

Volume labels are irrelevant. You cannot have two C: or D: drives. Windows will automatically re-letter the non primary hard drives to the next available volume letter.

I've had to do something like this after my old computer failed. I'll tell you, XP did not want to let go of it's files.

Anyway, if all you want is to get the files off then I suggest http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002. It doesn't come with a case or anything, it's just a simple SATA/IDE to USB adapter. My dad has one and I've used it before, but I haven't used it I figured out how to get the SATA port on the top of my tower working (An external SATA dock and an eSATA right on the front?).

Oh NTFS and your silly windows permissions that I always ignore

Windows respects NTFS permissions, which would give youan ownership problem that can be a PITA. There's a couple of fixes for it, the simplest one in Windows is http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-take-ownership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/

I wasn't planning on booting from it. In fact I was going to wipe the Windows Vista files off of it and use it as an extra HDD.

So I can either buy an adapter and hook it up as an extra HDD or get a SATA dock and use it as a temporary HDD? How complicated would it be to just install it as a permanent HDD? Would there be any problems or would it just plug in and work?

Your options are:

1. Get a 2.5'' to 3.5'' bay adapter

2. Get an enclosure (2.5'' compatible)

3. Get a drive dock

There are NO ways to install a 2.5'' drive in a 3.5'' drive without a bay adapter (well, I suppose if you were to try, you could suspend the drive internally using string...).

I personally think option #2 is the most versatile. It allows you to use the drive regularly (just leave it always plugged in if you want) while allowing for easy repurposing if the drive in it dies or you need to use it for another drive for a short period of time. If it is USB 3.0 or eSATA, there will be no loss transfer speed compared to internal. a bay adapter is better speed-wise if you don't have USB 3.0 or eSATA, but if you do have those, you only lose out by getting a bay adapter. Drive docks are great for one-time transfers or quick use, but not meant for prolonged use.

Oh, I did. Took me a while of screwing around the file systems options to figure it out though. I wasn't going to let it keep my Fallout 3 saves!


Oh, windows, will you ever cease to annoy? Bah, I shouldn't have left my Ubuntu partition so small.

Alright, thanks. I have USB 3.0 ports on the back of my PC (3 or 4 of them I think), so I think I'll get an enclosure and hook it up externally.

How large is your drive, anyway? At a certain size I would simply mount it internally for extra storage. Of course, since it's a laptop drive I'm going to assume that it's not very large.

WIth USB 3.0 there's no real advantage to going internal, expecially since he'd have to get an adapter of some kind anyway to use it USB 3.0 is more than enough to provide the bandwidth needed to not bottleneck all but the very fastest of SSDs. It then provides for a better backup solution since it can be removed from the computer when not in use much more easily.

I guess I've been spoiled by my case then. Stupid case, not needing screws.

I don't know, it's just always felt more right to have it mounted internally. It's wierd, I know. Although I don' see how it somehow makes it easier to back things up to. Unless you're talking about using it for an all-around backup drive for multiple PCs.

What's USB 3.0 good for, anyway? I really haven't seen any use for it other than what you have already stated. It just sits there, unused.

The horror! I can't stand tool-less cases


I never said it made backups easier, I said it makes for a better backup solution. An internal drive is at risk of falling victim to whatever damages the original data. An external drive allows you to unplug it (protect it from surges), isn't powered by the PSU (protecting it from the rare but possible spectacular PSU failure), can be moved away from the case when offline (protecting it from localized physical incidents). These are all aspects you would want in a backup. The more you can mitigate damage to the original data from also damaging the backup data, the better. (this is why mirroring and RAID are not backups)

USB 3.0 has better bandwidth (as mentioned) and far superior power management. Not only is less power used in general, power doesn't run hot when devices aren't in use, which was a problem with USB 2.0 (plug a mouse into a laptop and it'll constantly drain the power even when you use the touchpad instead of the mouse). eSATA was a hack to increase speed to SATA levels for external devices. USB 3.0 is a proper, durable solution and also backwards compatible with USB 2.0. In real-world situations, SATA III is faster than USB 3.0 (which in real world situations provides bandwidth only slightly faster than SATA II), but most hard drives cannot even saturate SATA II, much less USB 3.0 or SATA III

The weird part is that everything except the hard drives are mounted with screws. It both confuses and annoys me because those stupid plugs don't stay in well, but I can't see what I can really do about that and I like the ease of access, and it's the only complaint I really have against the case.

Anyway, thread has been answered, no reason to keep chatting.