Powered eSATA...

Thought this was going to be easy. I've got a laptop hard drive that I need to copy some data off. unfortunately I sold my desktop PC so can't simply plug it into that.

I'm wondering if this would do the trick.

It uses the combined USB+eSATA port to provide power from the USB port and data using the eSATA port. It looks like any SATA drive would connect to it but I need someone to confirm as they say it is only to "upgrade" GoFlex drives.

Anyone tried this with a standard sata hard drive (laptop or desktop)?

PS yes I do have a combined USB+eSATA port on my laptop.

I would expect it would work just fine.. Alternatively you could buy something like this (powered externally, though).. I have an earlier version which works a treat..

Yeah that's the more normal way to do it.

Might just take the drive into work and use my desktop there.

Still tempted to buy one of those GoFlex things as to would be handy. Although I doubt USB+eSATA ports will ever be mass market so might be a waste.

I have a feeling that power from USB wouldn't be enough for a 3.5" drive so might only be ok for 2.5" laptop drives so not a flexible.

In reply to a post by 5km:

I have a feeling that power from USB wouldn't be enough for a 3.5" drive so might only be ok for 2.5" laptop drives so not a flexible.

Agreed, hence the alternative.. Although, if it didn't work you could always send it back (especially if you only need it for the one disk)..

Can't you just put it in your laptop?

Yes I could but windows being windows would have a spaz and probably wouldn't boot from it therefore this would be more problematic than trying to copy the files off it using another computer.

Which is where bootable media such as Bart's PE, F4, UBCD4Win or even "Live Linux" distro's come in to their own.
Just boot from the CD or pen or whatever, set up the network and sharing etc daemon to suit your requirements and copy away to a shared resource on your network or even a USB drive or CD/DVD.
The Windows PE based media also contain many readily useable applications and tools such as offline registry editors, Windows repair tools, data recovery, partition management and malware removal etc etc.

Is there a reason you omitted Trinity Rescue Kit? It is a "Live Linux", but it's intended as a toolkit for recovering from Windows hiccups. Haven't used it for a while though...

I suspect that the majority of readers of this and similar threads are Windows users. Even though I gave Linux based media a mention, I think that most users feel far more at ease with the comfort of familiar surroundings and tools etc.
A situation where for example important data needs to be recovered can be stressful enough without the added "trauma" of having to fret within an "alien" environment.

This isn't a dig at Linux BTW, it's just the way things are.

As for recovering from "Wincups", to coin a phrase, I generally use MSDaRT. Version 5 is basically the former XP PE based ERD Commander from Winternals whilst 6 is Vista/Seven based. I've integrated both into a fully fledged bootable "Rescue" CD along with a host of other necessary tools. All the common drivers that I could think of such as RAID, SATA, AHCI and NIC etc controllers are preinstalled with data recovery and partition etc managers etc thinstalled. I rarely have a need for any other "recovery" type media these days.