Apricorn Drivewire Universal HDD Adapter USB To 2.5IN & 3.5IN Sata & Pata
by APRICORN MASS STORAGE
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apricorn Drivewire Universal HDD Adapter USB To 2.5IN & 3.5IN Sata & Pata
Customer Review: Highly Recommended
Summary: 5 Stars
Complete success using this product to clone (complete copy of all files, and more importantly the Operating System and all Applications)in preparation for upgrading the hard drive in my laptop.
My computer is a 4 year old Sony Vaio VGN-SZ120P/B with an OEM Seagate 100Gig SATA 2.5" 5600rpm drive. I purchased a Western Digital 320Gig SATA 2.5" 7200rpm drive as a replacement. As advertised, this product, and its accompanying software allowed me to connect the apricorn device to the existing hard drive through the USB port in the laptop, and the new hard drive to the apricorn device. The data transfer was relatively quick and completely uneventful.
After I cracked open the laptop and swapped out to the WD drive, the computer booted right up seeing the new drive as though it had always been installed. I am very happy this was successful as for about $110.00 total (drive, apricorn, shipping, tax, etc) I was able to extend the life of my laptop which had become completely full and was throwing off disc full warnings with each use.
As a result, I highly recommend this product.
Customer Review: Almost perfect!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought the Drivewire to transfer and securely wipe the data from old hard drives before recycling or selling them. It easily connects to just about any drive and then connects to a PC via a USB cable. Windows 7 recognized the device almost instantly without having to install any external drivers. The attached drive appears in Windows Explorer as another hard drive. The system also works perfectly with DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) to totally and securely wipe an external hard drive.
The only area of improvement would be for the drive to also offer an eSATA option for connecting to a PC, as USB 2.0 is slower. But for the inexpensive price, this device is a must-have for recovering data from just about any salvaged hard drive.
I did not try the included disc-cloning software.
Pros:
1. Inexpensive
2. Simple to use
3. Small but well-constructed
4. Includes power supply for hard drives
Cons:
1. Supplied USB cable could be longer
2. eSATA and/or USB 3.0 connectivity back to computer lacking
Customer Review: Nice hardware, lousy software
Summary: 3 Stars
The Apricorn Driveware is very simply and highly functional, easy to set up. I was less than impressed by the software included with the EZ GIG III that shipped. Not sure if the software with the II was better, but the III did not play nice with my Vista machine. After trying 3 times to clone a smaller hard drive to a larger hard drive I gave up and downloaded EASEUS software package, this was a dream. Worked perfectly the first time with the Apricorn device. So yes I would recommend this item, but don't even bother with the software. The support page (Apricorn) was terrible, no forum, nothing on the FAQ for the III. I tried to call tech support and after sitting on hold forever decided to email, nothing was resolved there, but they did send me an email suggesting that I don't bother messing with the manual partition settings included as an option in the Apricorn software. If you can't adjust partitions then why bother. Buy this item, but then download Easus (FREE). It worked like a charm, and I was able to partition the drive very easily afterwards with the same package.Customer Review: Works, but has to be connected in a certain order.
Summary: 5 Stars
I needed this to be able to access data from older hard drives. I did run into a small problem when hooking this up to my PC. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't showing under explorer in Windows. I went to computer management to see if it was seen there. It was, but then I kept getting the "device is not ready" "failed to initialize" message. I disconnected it and tried again. This time I plugged in the power cord first, then plugged in the USB next. After that it was immediately recognized in Windows as a hard drive. I don't see anything in the manual about the order a drive should be connected to this.
So far it seems to be working with everything I've thrown at it. A power switch on the cord somewhere would've been nice, as it would probably be better to power down first before removal. And maybe add an esata connection. The power cord is way too short for me, but I have lots of longer cords laying around to use. The device itself is lighter than I expected, but as long as it works I don't care. I haven't tried the software so I can't comment on that.
Customer Review: Hardware great software not so
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased the Drivewire as a tool for my business (I'm an IT Tech). I have been using multiple external enclosures which is time consuming at best. I find the Drivewire Hardware easy to use and quite a time saver. I have used it on all types of drives (PATA & SATA 3.5" & 2.5") of varied capacities (up to 500gig so far) and it has worked flawlessly on all in multiple Windows OS's. As for the Clone software (EZ Gig II) it does not work in all cases. For single partition / single OS clones it's fine but not for multi boot OS / multi partition situations.
Per Apricorn Tech Support - Are you trying to clone a drive with multiple boot partitions? If so, this may or may not work once the drive is cloned because it cannot interpret proprietary boot loaders.
In those cases you will need a more sophisticated cloning software that does understand Windows (proprietary?) Boot Loaders. I haven't found the "may work" situation as yet and probably will not since it is a waste of time to do the clone twice!