Deflationary forces and technology improvements in the computer industry have resulted in significant savings to be realized in hardware storage devices. The one terabyte hard drive would have sounded like something out of the “X Files” just 10 years ago. Now, check out some of the great prices on: 1 TB External Hard Drives.
These USB external hard drives can be used in both a PC world and the Mac world for key backups of your system. What would you do if your computer went down? What if your hard drive were to die on you, would you be lost? Would you lose it all?
If you haven’t done a backup of your system yet, I recommend it ASAP. Be prepared is the Boy Scout motto, and now is the time to do it before your system puts you in a bind.
This is your insurance policy to keeping your pictures, documents, files, applications, and complete software system backups up to date for your future computer health and welfare.
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My PC friends probably think I am crazy, but the weight of the decision of why I purchased an Apple MacBook Pro fell on five key points of comparisons to other laptop computers.
Apple MacBook Pro vs. Netbook PCs
Ease of Use
Quality
Versatility
Form Factor
Value (Price divided by the first four points)
My notebook story begins with searching for a good quality, fast speed, good display screen, a comfortable track pad, good software, ease of use, long life battery, ability to do videos and pictures well, but low priced netbook or small laptop for mobile/portable/travel use. I quickly found that there is no such creature like this.
I stopped in over at Fry’s and started playing with the various new Windows 7 Netbooks from Acer and MSI. At first glance I wanted to really like these netbooks, but it was only a short lived infatuation. There were more than a few barriers to taking these netbooks from a foolish liking to an in-depth affection. For one, they were small. Now, that may be good in one aspect for portability, but for another aspect of screen size, it was very difficult to get comfortable with the small screen size. Those of us that are requiring reading glasses are sure to find these screens are much too small. Sure, the price was low at around $350.00, but look at what you are getting for that.
With these netbooks, this really is a case of getting what you pay for. Slow processor speeds, low memory, no dvd/cd drive, and a new operating system with Windows 7 that is all déjà vu. The Windows 7 operating system loaded on these netbooks feels like an upgraded version of Windows XP, with things moved around a bit and other things very difficult to find. Of course, this is the dominate format for these netbooks. Simple things like how to change the icon sizes on the desktop took me 10 minutes to find. And, that was after I spoke with the sales people, though that brings up the topic of the sales people may not have the best of training either. That’s another story. In any case, three of the sales people that I spoke with could not figure it out. It wasn’t located in the Windows 7 control panel area, as one would think. Finally I did what would be a right click with a mouse on the desktop, though I am not sure how I did it with the netbook trackpad, but I was able to change the default icon size to a smaller size.
Speaking of touchpads or trackpads, I have grown up on a mouse in the house for both PCs and Macs. So, this really was my first time investigating and comparing track pads. The trackpads on these netbooks and mini laptops seemed to be engineering afterthoughts. Actually, they lacked quality engineering and no consumer testing. The one that bugged the heck out of me the most was the trackpad on the MSI mini laptop. It felt like sandpaper on the tips of my fingers after playing with it for 10 minutes. Actually, I ended up pulling another customer over and asking him what he thought of the touchpad. His thoughts were exactly the same as mine. The trackpad had a very textured finish that was not comfortable to the touch. I can only imagine what it would be like after navigating with this trackpad for an hour or so. I would have to put Band-Aids on my fingers. Definitely not a very good touchy-feely experience.
So, I decide that maybe I needed to move up in price and screen size. I moved up to the mid range for laptops. However, there seemed to be a void in the size from the 8.9 inch – 11 inch version mini laptops to the 15 inch larger laptops. Price started going up significantly as I wanted a more powerful laptop that could do various types of mult-tasking, and still stay with a useful but compact size. Next thing I knew, I was up around the $700.00 price tag. But, still I had issues with trackpads, and the lack of ease of use.
So, I ventured over to the Mac table. Being an equal opportunity user of both Windows PCs and Macs and am well versed in both the PC and Mac land, having owned many versions of Windows PCs and an iMac G5 for a number of years. I have also had the opportunity to have hands on experience by having friends allowing me to play with their MacBooks for various applications. When I went over to the Mac table, it was a breath of heaven to feel and touch the new MacBooks.
My First Thoughts on the MacBook and MacBook Pro
The first thing that stood out to me was the ease of use. The trackpads are very very easy to use. Having a Multi-Touch Trackpad that is large, smooth, extremely powerful, two finger scroll capable, two finger pinch zoom capable, two finger rotate, and even two finger right click or secondary click capable with the full complement of right click commands available. Additional trackpad features include three finger swipe navigation to go forward or back in browser history, four finger swipe left to right to switch applications, or four finger swipe up down for exposing the open applications. You can even set the one finger to tap to click, dragging, drag lock, and secondary click to bottom left or bottom right corner. Track speed, double-click speed, and scrolling speed can all be individually adjusted to just the way you want them.
With this MacBook Trackpad, you will quickly find out that a person can go from using a mouse to very easily using the Multi-Touch Trackpad in no time flat.
Another aspect of the MacBook that makes it a joy to work with, is the ease of use of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. While any new software will take time getting use to, the learning curve for the Mac OS X is very fast. I think part of the reason for this is the intuitiveness of how the things are laid out. Apple also has some very good quick training videos that are quite helpful. Take a look at some of the Mac tutorials on how to do things.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system is a pleasure to work with. It is very intuitive, which makes for a very easy transition to go from working with a Windows based machines to a Mac based operating systems. Of course, I am a bit biased in this area, since I have been using both Windows and Mac machines for quite some time. Never the less, some friends of mine who had been with Windows their whole lives, recently made the switch to Mac, and the operating system switch proved to be a very easy transition for them.
The high quality of the Apple MacBooks can not be overstated. Everything fits together like a form fitting glove. The opening of the screen display has just the right amount of hinge tightness. As I stated before, the trackpad is very smooth, and seems to just fit perfectly for your hands and fingers on the keyboard area. The keyboard has automatic backlighting, which in dim environments is great for quick reference. The MacBook Pro comes in a very sleek, 1.08 inches thin, aluminum unibody construction.
I bought the 13.3 inch MacBook Pro with the glossy widescreen display. This for me was the perfect fit for size and portability, but has plenty of desktop space with a screen of 1280-by-800 pixel resolution, made this one the ideal laptop solution for viewing documents, web sites, videos, and pictures.
The weight of the MacBook Pro 13 inch at 4.7 pounds is very manageable. It easily fits into a briefcase or backpack. I also suggest a carrying case to protect your MacBook. I decided to go with the Incase Nylon Sleeve Case for the Apple 13 inch MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro fits perfectly in this padded case and provides extra storage areas on both sides for accessories. The case and the MacBook Pro worked out perfectly for a recent vacation trip from California to Florida with several layovers. The case added the extra protection and allowed me to quickly place the MacBook in my carryon suitcase, and quickly remove it for airport security checks. The case also comes with a removable shoulder strap and is available in three colors, black, graphite, and mustard.
The MacBook Pro is such a pleasure to use for all aspects of computing. For example, when it comes to viewing video on the screen, it is second to none. The display is rich in color, bright, and vivid to look at. Movies are cool to watch and when it comes to catching up on your television shows like Flash Forward episodes, it is incredible to watch it on the MacBook. It’s as though watching it on the MacBook Pro is better than on the TV screen. The stereo sound quality from the computer is great too. The audio level has decibels of sound to spare. You can actually make the sound too loud for others in the room. Forget trying that with any other netbook.
With the built-in iSight camera and microphone, doing a Google Video Chat was simply amazing. The camera and built-in microphone worked great together. I was able to use the camera in both low light and regular lighting conditions. The chat session was perfect. There was no audio feedback and the person on the other end said the audio and video were perfect too.
The battery life is rated at 7 hours, but that is under somewhat controlled conditions. Apple quotes the following from their website:
Testing conducted by Apple in May 2009 using preproduction 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based MacBook Pro units. Battery life depends on configuration and use. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information. The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%.
I typically like my screen brighter than 50%, and was able to generally get about 5+ hours of battery usage on three battery cycles. However, I was playing videos, browsing the Internet through wireless connections, and searching for other wireless Internet connections during this time.
The charging plug is held in place with a super strong magnet, which if someone catches the cord will simply pull the connector off the MacBook without pulling the MacBook down to the floor. Definitely a great safety feature. the charger is very compact, and fits nice and flat inside one of the Incase pockets I bought for the MacBook Pro.
The MacBook Pro 13 inch that I purchased has the 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; which supports up to 8GB of memory, 250GB Serial ATA; 5400 rpm hard drive, and 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW).
Combined optical digital output/headphone out (user-selectable analog audio line in)
Supports Apple Stereo Headset with microphone
Read more about all the MacBook Pro features today.
By the way, if a person really wants to have their cake and eat it too, in the form of Windows 7 on their MacBook, there is another feature that lets a person load any operating system they wish. Boot Camp is a utility included with Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" and v10.6 "Snow Leopard" operating systems that assists users in installing Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or 7 on Intel-based Macintosh computers. Boot Camp guides users through non-destructive re-partitioning (including resizing of an existing HFS+ partition, if necessary) of their hard disk drive and using the Mac OS X Leopard disc to install Windows drivers. In addition to device drivers for the hardware, the disc includes an applet for the Windows control panel for selecting the boot operating system.
In addition to Boot Camp, there are other avenues that are also available such as, VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop that provide the means of loading Microsoft Windows and other non Windows operating systems such as Linux OS onto the MacBook computers. Both VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop are helpful software applications that allow folks to run Windows applications directly and concurrently on their MacBooks and quickly switch between the two.
There is also an open source software, VirtualBox, available from Sun. VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, originally created by German software company Innotek, now developed by Sun Microsystems as part of its Sun xVM virtualization platform. It is installed on an existing host operating system; within this application, additional operating systems, each known as a Guest OS, can be loaded and run, each with its own virtual environment.
“Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.”
I have to say that the MacBook Pro is really a great all purpose laptop computer for business, school, and personal use. With ease of use, superb quality, immense versatility, and an awesome form factor, the value of this MacBook Pro computer is outstanding. You won’t want to leave home without it! Checkout the online Amazon Apple Store deals today.
Jim Warholic is President of Professional Web Services, Inc., an Internet Marketing Services firm specializing in B2B and B2C Internet marketing, SEO services, online advertising, and online branding strategies. Contact Professional Web Services today.
The days of using a 20 watt soldering iron from Radio Shack are long gone when it comes to repairing lead free soldered circuits in Apple Computers, PCs, and other lead-free electronics equipment.
With multilayer boards, thick ground planes and power planes, and high temperature circuit board materials, along with countries having bans on the use of leaded solder in circuit boards; electronic components are now being attached using lead-free wave soldering or pick-and-place machines using conductive epoxy flux adhesives and then heat cured. All of this adds up to quite a bit of difficulty in reworking and repairing circuit boards today.
While it is good to keep our environment clean, I think the wide spread use of lead-free solder in printed circuit board assembly processes is a case filled with a manufacturing life of unintended consequences. There are major challenges that have and continue to affect printed circuit board manufacturing around the world. First off, PCB materials must be able to withstand lead-free soldering temperatures of up to 260[degrees]C during the assembly operation. [1] This in itself, requires the use of more expensive, and much more difficult materials to work with at the PCB manufacturing stages. Not only is the multilayer construction much more difficult to deal with, but the drilling of the holes in thick multilayer circuit boards, with circuit board materials that are of a "harder" material nature, as compared to traditional FR-4 resin systems (not designed for lead-free), directly adds to the manufacturing costs involved.
I also find it interesting, that about the time where the world (pushed by the European Union) started converting over to using lead-free PCB manufacturing techniques, there seems to be a correlation between the electrolytic capacitor failures that started to occur a short time later in TVs, Set-Top Boxes, Computers, PCs from Dell, Apple, and other computer manufacturers, along with a host of other high powered electronic gadgets. I have no way of proving it, but I suspect that many of these components were hit with a large temperature blast through either high temperature wave soldering processes or oven based curing used in the finished component filled PCB assemblies.
“With a melting point of 217°C, SAC solder also is closest in melting point to the conventional lead–tin solder. This does mean, however, a yet-unquantified increase in energy use. Furthermore, the higher temperature may pose problems for the electronics industry. Higher temperatures mean more stress on components and the entire manufacturing process, notes Geibig. Higher temperatures also mean increases in the time it takes to make products, because more time is required to heat and cool the products during the course of their manufacture.” [2]
On July 1, 2006 the European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) and Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) came into effect, prohibiting the intentional addition of lead to most consumer electronics produced in the EU. California recently adopted a RoHS law and China has a version as well. [3] In order to meet the new directives established by the EU on removing the lead from electronics, has greatly affected the PCB assembly world at large. In effect, countries that did not have directives for the use of lead-free electronics assembly, were forced by default of having to build to meet the international requirements from the EU.
“This directive (EU Directive 2002/95/EC) places a restriction on the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical or electronic equipment sold or used in the European Union (EU) after July 1, 2006 with some exemptions.” [4]
‘Within the United States, California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act imposes a fee on “covered electronic devices” currently being sold within the state. This fee is intended to cover the cost of properly disposing of the products when they become waste. Second, it requires “covered electronic devices” sold in California after January 1, 2007 to meet the same requirements as those found in European Union Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation. Electronic devices containing toxic metals and not complying may not be manufactured, sold, or imported into California after January 1, 2007.’ [4] Other states have enacted similar laws.
So, what does that mean for circuit board and electronics repair folks today looking for ways to extend the service lives of their equipment? Well, there are some special soldering techniques that are involved to do the electronic repair jobs right.
What is required to repair lead-free circuit boards with large discrete components?
These lead-free soldering tips are specifically geared toward the large discrete components such as: electrolytic capacitors, transistors, diodes, bridge rectifiers, and coils (inductor chokes). Information on how to repair and replace surface mount devices with lead-free soldering techniques is waiting for a later date to be written.
1. The soldering iron at a minimum needs to be 60 watts, and have the right tip for the right job. If you are trying to solder on a thick multilayer PCB, then a wide tip is absolutely required to do the job right. There is a difference between the lead-free tips and the old standard tips used for the standard 60/40 Tin Lead (60/40 Sn/Pb) Solder. 60/40 Sn/Pb melts at 370 °F or 188 °C while various lead-free solders used in PCB assembly have a melting point range of 415-441 °F or 213-227 °C . It is important to note that the increase in the melting temperature for lead-free solder, does not tell the whole story for proper solder joints involved with component replacements and PCB repairs.
You might be thinking, that the soldering iron I have gets up to 850 °F, I should be able to repair any lead-free soldered component on any PCB. That is wrong thinking here. I mentioned at the beginning about having a wide tip when soldering a thick multilayer. But, you need more than a wide tip. The soldering iron, at the tip, must be able to quickly recover on the heat cycle. It must also be able to supply the heat continually at a constant temperature, or near constant temperature to do the job right. This is where the wattage of the soldering iron is a factor for delivering the heat continually.
A thick multilayer PCB acts like a huge heatsink, sucking the heat away from the area that you want it, and dissipating it over the area where it is not required. If you use a small caliber soldering iron to try and remove components on this type of PCB, you will more than likely simply heat up the circuit board in a wide area, including the component itself before the solder will ever melt. In fact, it is quite likely that the lead-free solder will never melt, because the soldering iron can not quickly and effectively localize the heat in a high enough concentration to do any good. Actually you will probably do more harm than good.
I have heard from some folks, and talking from experience, that you will end up throwing a few choice words around that will not endear yourself to your spouse, if you try to use a low powered soldering iron. Even if you do manage to remove the component, the new component you install will have either the poorest of a solder joint, making you look like an amateur, or worse, an overly heated and damaged component that will result in early failure. Solder joints made with a low wattage soldering iron will likely result in cold solder joints, which will result in poor electrical connectivity and a non-working circuit board.
How about a portable butane powered soldering iron, won’t that work better? Been there and done that. Take it from experience, the answer to that question is no. I tried a wide tipped butane powered soldering iron and I was not able to even make a dent in the lead-free solder on a Apple iMac G5 motherboard.
What about a soldering gun? Once again, been there, done that. It doesn’t work with even the highest powered soldering gun. Soldering guns are not really designed for circuit board repairs. Take it from experience, put this idea out of your mind, it won’t work.
So Jim, what do you recommend in a soldering iron? Do you recommend a lead free soldering iron or a lead free soldering station? Let me first say here, that I have recommended some soldering irons and soldering stations to folks that have written to me and asked for my advice on various Apple repairs, and I would be more than happy to recommend something if you send me an email request. I will say this, that you can get a very good one at a very decent price. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a soldering station. However, don’t make the mistake and think you can get by with the old hobby soldering iron that you have in the desk drawer. Trying to use a substandard, low wattage soldering iron for lead-free motherboard repairs will give you headaches galore. Actually, I would like to hear more from readers of what you have used for lead free soldering.
2. What is the best way to remove the electronic component such as a electrolytic capacitor off a thick multilayer PCB once I have a good soldering iron or soldering station? I suggest you have the PCB standing up on edge, so that you can work from both sides of the circuit board. Check out the Chip Quik kit for removing the capacitors in difficult circuit boards. While heating up one leg of a radial electrolytic capacitor from the bottom, and at the same time slightly pushing the capacitor from the top, away from the leg being heated, at which time the solder starts to melt, the capacitor leg will start to move out of the hole. Do this for the other leg, alternating back and forth to each leg, and slowly work out the capacitor from the hole as the solder melts. After the capacitor is removed, a solder sucker can be used to remove a lot of the excess solder in and around the circuit pad. Using solder wick, (also referred to as desoldering wick or desoldering braid) on the thicker boards does not work well because of the extra heatsinking that occurs when the solder wick is applied. At this stage of the component replacement repair, invariably, not all the solder will come out of the holes with the use of a good quality solder sucker. This is where I suggest using my next soldering tip.
3. Try using a sewing pin, with a plastic head, and heat up the tip and the solder pad at the same time, once the caps are removed. This will push the solder out of the holes and solder will not stick to the steel sewing pins. Stop in at your local sewing machine center and you will find a large assortment of sewing pin sizes. Select a sewing pin size that matches up to the size of the leg of the capacitor. Once the pin is pushed through the hole, continue to apply heat to the pin and the pad, and move it in and out, making the hole the right size for your new components.
4. Is it best to use lead-free solder when installing the replacement capacitors? I have mixed thoughts on this. On the one hand, since the board is already using a lead-free solder, I would say stay with using lead-free solder. However, the standard solder is much easier to work with, and because it has a lower melting point, it seems to work fine. One negative item to be aware of here, is there may be a reduction in the soldering iron tip life if using the special plated tips designed for lead-free soldering, and using leaded solder.
I do have one major item that must be adhered to; only use a rosin core type of solder. Do not use acid flux. No acid flux. Acid core solder and acid flux will damage the circuit board and/or the components. With that being said, it is important that what ever solder is used, that the old solder and the new solder join (melt) together when installing the new components. Be careful with this that you don’t under heat or over heat your work. Just the right amount will do. It is hard to describe how much, and how long the heat should be applied to get a good solder joint. Take a close look at your solder joints. If they seem to be loose, then reapply the heat until the old and the new become one. As an additional note, and I have to say once again as a matter of importance, remember that the components themselves do not like it too hot for too long.
To properly solder motherboard capacitors on thick MOBs, you will need to operate the soldering iron or soldering station temperatures at or near maximum temperature settings. Heat up the pad on the bottom first and foremost by having most of the soldering tip on the pad; while at the same time having the tip touch the capacitor leg. I strongly suggest using lead free rosin core solder with a no clean residue; which you can purchase with your capacitors order at www.jwestsales.com. The no clean flux rosin core solder simply means that the center of the solder has a flux rosin core that is activated by heat, and the remaining residual flux does not need to be cleaned off the circuit board and will not harm the onboard circuitry. Remember also, that the MOB has residual lead free solder already present on the circuit pad and lining the circuit board hole walls, and must be melted (typically referred to as “wetting” action) with the new solder to form a good solder joint. If you use standard 60/40 lead solder for soldering, it is much more difficult to do the job just right, and is much more likely to produce cold solder joints because the different types of solders melt at substantially different temperatures and will not properly join together.
Be careful of other small components and surface mount devices (SMD) on the bottom and top of the boards. These devices are so small, that many times they can be damaged or unattached to the PCB simply by accidentally placing the soldering iron tip on the surface mounted component soldered leads, either moving it or bridging the leads with solder. So what I am saying is, try to use a steady hand.
The picture above, of the custom circuit board clamping hands-free support system, is the brainchild of Paul N. — Grayslake, IL. Paul writes, “You can buy a 12" x 2.5" (depth) wood-working clamp from Home Depot for about $10 and a 3" ‘C’ clamp for another $5. Then apply some adhesive-backed, dense foam rubber on each face of the wood-working clamp. Note that I removed the hard rubber covers that were on the clamp originally.” Paul calls the device the, “Kludged Circuit Board Clamp.” It is important to note that when clamping the circuit board with any clamping device, that you do not position the clamps on top of any components or the very small low profile SMDs on either side of the PCB.
There is another lead free soldering/unsoldering components helper that is simply amazing! Check out the video of the Chip Quik lead-free unsoldering kit and system of replacing components on circuit boards. I highly recommend this patented SMD and discrete components removal kit.
Arctic Silver thermal heat sink compounds for sale for Apple, Intel, AMD CPUs and for use between other modern high-powered CPUs and high performance heatsinks or water-cooling solutions.
Find Apple iMac G5 capacitor kits for mother boards and power supplies available to purchase online. Arctic Silver Thermal Heatsink Compound and computer tools are available too. Apple iMac G5 extra long life (10,000 hours) low ESR Caps.
See What’s on the Computer Tap Today
I’m adding new items for sale on a regular basis at J West Sales eCommerce Store, so check back with me later. In the mean time, if you are looking for something special, or would like to see me carry some other products for sale, let me know, and I’ll see if I can track them down for you. Contact Jim Warholic today.
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Updated information on the floppy disk drives hardware interfaces and FDD emulators to replace 3.5 inch, 5.25 inch, and 8 inch floppy disk drive units. These devices are not external USB floppy disk drives, but direct floppy disk drive replacements for internal original equipment manufacturers floppy disk drives. In other words, if the OEM computer has a standard 34 pin floppy disk drive cable, these devices are plug and play. No USB port is required on the OEM computer for the floppy emulators to function. This is follow up information to my first article on the subject: The Floppy Disk Drive Engineering Design Challenge SSD to FDD
Pictured above from right to left are old legacy 3 1/2, 5 1/4, and 8 inch floppy disk drives which have been installed in OEM computers. The floppy disk drive emulators replace these old legacy floppy disk drives with a simple plug-and-play emulator device. No computer USB ports are required for operation. In fact the three floppy disk drive emulator devices shown below are designed for computers that do not have USB ports.
Readers have been asking for quite some time if I have found out any more information on the FDD SDD interfaces.
How is the FDD SDD interface shaping up?
I would like to see a device in a 3.5″ form factor to fit in existing housings.
It should have a SD slot in the front with a LED or LCD display, up/down buttons and a soft eject/reinsert button, this way you can dial up the appropriate floppy image and then soft-insert it.
Because the FD drive interface uses control signals to physically step the motor and heads, the interface will need an MCU such as a Pic to act as a interpreter between the memory buffer (720k or 1.44k) and the interface. A second MCU should be used to interface the SD card to the memory buffer.
Disk images can be stored in individual folders on the SD card and accessed incrementally.
The unit will also need several hardware switches to emulate the various non-standard formats (i.e.: disk insert notification) adopted by early manufacturers.
Just a couple of thoughts. I think this device has potential to be a very popular eBay item.
Cheers,
Q
In response to those emails, and thank you for sending all those emails to me by-the-way; below is FDD information that I think many engineers and end users will find very useful and some possible solutions to the old legacy floppy disk drives.
Apparently there are a few FDD hardware replacement solutions from several companies called “floppy disk drive emulators” for the old floppy disk drives in legacy equipment.
A. I listed these FDD emulator manufacturers in no apparent order.
ipcas – USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1
The USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1 is from ipcas GmbH, a company located in Germany. The USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1 device is a direct replacement for the old legacy floppy diskette drives. The connections on the back of this FDD emulator are identical to that of the old floppy disk drives. On the back of this device is the 34-pin socket where the floppy disk drive cable gets plugged in, and the +5 volt DC standard power connection for the floppy drive also plugs in to the back side.
The front side of the device accepts a USB Stick, which acts like the floppy disk, but stores up to 100 virtual floppy disk drives on the USB Stick, with each number representing the virtual floppy disk drive being accessed. Simply select the desired virtual floppy (0-99) with the selection button to choose which virtual floppy you wish to access from the USB Stick front plug in.
According to the USB Floppy Disk Emulator User Manual, “The ipcas Floppy Disk Emulator can also replace other forms of disk drives and disk storage systems. Refer to the comparison with a 5¼ inch floppy disk drive with 1.2 MB floppies.”
Pictured below is the backside view of the ipcas USB Floppy Emulator 100 in 1 device.
Notice on the picture above, the standard 34 pin floppy disk connector and the standard power connector. These connectors are plugged into the existing OEM computers, (where a floppy disk drive would be installed) and the front side is where the USB stick would be inserted.
The beauty of this device is that no driver or configuration software is required to install and operate this floppy disk emulator with old legacy equipment. The manual states, “Many machines and devices are still using floppy disk drives as the only means of data input. CNC, milling, injection mold, or embroidery machines, laser cutting devices and integrated control systems, just to mention a few, are still being fed data with floppy disks several times a day.”
B. The Next Floppy Disk Emulator Device
PLR Electronics – 3 ½ floppy drive to USB flash drive reader upgrade
PLR Electronics specializes in the embroidery machine circuit boards. They also have been involved in repairing other circuit board equipment too. PLR Electronics sells the 3½ floppy drive to USB flash drive reader upgrade device. PLR Electronics claims that the device will “work successfully on · CNC Machines · Embroidery Machines · Keyboards · Knitting Machines · Diagnostics Machines · Cutters · Routers · And most any machines with a Floppy Disk Drive.”
The backside of the emulator has the power connection plug and the floppy disk drive cable plug. Simply remove the old floppy drive cable and power connection, and plug it into the FDD emulator. The front side of the device has the USB Flash Drive Port, a File Chooser Connector Port, and even a Network port connection to another computer. The file chooser provides a means of selecting which files on the USB Flash Drive you wish to choose.
There are a number of modes of operation. SFDR-1, SFDR-II (SFDR-1 + File Chooser), plus other modes of operation:
We request that you inform us on the original floppy drive type when placing an order to avoid mismatching the drive type. For example:
SFDR-I-I————–Universal IBM type
SFDR-I-A————-YD-6639D, TEAC235FG
SFDR-I-B————-NEC 1137C
SFDR-I-C————-YD-6037D
The picture below shows how the Floppy Drive Emulator from PLR Electronics would be installed.
Installation Instructions:
To install your 3 1?2 floppy to USB Flash Reader, with the device powered off and unplugged, simply remove the existing drive from its existing cradle. Disconnect existing ribbon cable and power cable from existing drive. Reattach existing power cable and ribbon cable to the USB Flash Reader. Insert USB Flash Reader into existing 3 1?2 floppy cradle and reattach all hardware. Your device is now ready to use. If any existing configuration is required on your system, please use all standard settings for a 3 1?2 floppy drive as detailed in your devices user manual.
Once the floppy emulator is installed, you then can use any USB Flash Stick as your floppy drive. In other words, you use a portable USB stick as the floppy. The original floppy cable plugs directly into the floppy emulator. These are not external USB floppy drives.
I would also imagine (though I have not confirmed) that if there were two floppy drives on the OEM equipment to begin with, you could hook up one of these devices and copy from one of the original floppy drives to the new emulated floppy drive onto a USB stick.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
- Q – Will this device work with a Windows NT operating system?
A – YES. This device should work with any OS assuming it is capable of working with IBM type floppies.
- Q – Will the 3 1/2 floppy to USB drive work in a XXXXXXXXX that can only read 720k 3 1/2 floppies?
A – Yes
- Q – We have XXXXXXX machines here and the floppy disk is 720K. IF we put a 1.44k in the machine the floppy drive does not work. Do you have a 720K mode on your device? T
A – Yes
- Q – Hi I am presently using a XXXXXXX keyboard which uses floppy disks on which I play my music files. Can this flash drive reader be used in my case?
A – Yes it will.
- Q – Hi, I currently have a floppy disk drive that is half the height of a standard drive. How can I modify this to work?
A – You do not need to modify anything. We offer a laptop height version. Please ask for this version when placing your order.
- Q – Is it USB 2.0?
A – No, its standard USB. However, USB 2.0 is used primarily for high speed data transfer. In this instance, the files you are using are very small so, there will be no noticeable difference.
C. On to the next storage systems emulators for replacing floppy disk drive units.
Data Storage DTX-200 Floppy Disk Drive Emulator
Datex, located in France, sells the Datastorage, storage systems emulators to replace legacy disk drives, such as Fujitsu MK2322, Control Data FSD515, Ampex, Maxtor XT1140, as well as tape drives. Datex manufactures the DTX-200 Floppy Disk Drive Emulator. The DTX-200 is designed for directly replacing 3 1/2, 5 1/4, and 8 inch floppy disk drive units.
There are numerous options available for the Datastorage DTX200. Compact Flash cards or USB keys can be used to store data on. A floppy disk adapter card is designed specifically for the specific connection technology to directly replace each of the specific types and manufacturers model floppy disk drives.
3 1/2” DRIVES: ALPS: AL FD 7xx, PANASONIC: JU-25xxx, SONY: MPF-520xx, MPF-920xx, …
And all other Floppy disk drives…
The Datastorage DTX200 is designed to fit in the space of a 3.5 inch floppy drive. Apparently it is pre-programmed to have the same features as the floppy drive being replaced. It is designed to hold information on a CF (Compact Flash Memory Card), or a USB key and is designed to be used in numerous applications such as: cash registers, robots, planes, boats, and submarines. A StorageNewsletter.com press release, Datex Designed a Floppy Disk Drive Emulator, dated January 5th, 2009, stated that “this DTX200 emulator has already been installed in Japan and Taiwan, as well as in the French RATP.”
What do these Floppy Disk Drive Emulators Cost?
The cost of these Floppy Disk Drive Emulators vary considerably. At this time, I am not going to post the individual prices, because they are probably changing as I write this. The FDD Emulators go from approximately 275 USD to 1,100 USD and the cost could be more expensive depending on the added options. The links are there to the companies and the emulators in this article to compare the costs yourself.
Which one is best for your application?
There are pros and cons to each of the above floppy disk drive emulators. Some have more options than others. Certainly some of them are significantly more expensive than others, but that is not the only criteria that should be used in the evaluation process. Since I have not tried any of these emulators out myself, I feel I can not give you an honest analysis of which FDD emulator I would recommend.
If anyone does decide to use any of these floppy disk drive replacement emulators, I would sure like to get your feedback on how well they worked for you.
A reader was kind enough to post the following information in the comments section, but I wanted to post it here in case the URL hyperlinks change:
Here a complete list of the available floppy usb emulators:
Jim Warholic is an Internet marketer, with a background in electronics, engineering, printed circuit boards, technology, marketing, advertising, and sales. Jim is President of Professional Web Services, Inc., an Internet marketing company located in the San Francisco Bay Area; specializing in Internet marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing) online advertising, PPC (Pay Per Click advertising campaign management), SMM (Social Media Marketing) and SMM (Social Media Optimization), web branding, eCommerce solutions, and sales and marketing solutions for businesses in both the B2B and B2C market sectors.
The challenge is to design a floppy disk drive interface to be a direct replacement for 3½-inch FDD or older 5¼-inch floppy disk drives on legacy industrial computer equipment. The FDD engineering hardware design requirements would be to build a new style FDD solid state disk drive, hooked up on the floppy disk connector (FDD). Keep in mind, the option to install is not available on legacy machines a solid state HD device — IDE to Compact Flash CF adapter on the parallel IDE HD connector since many industrial equipment machines do not support IDE; which by-the-way, these direct replacement hard drive adapters are currently available for PCs with IDE PATA ports (see images below). As part of the engineering guidelines, the direct replacement FDD device must also be able to read and write from FDD 1 to Solid State CF FDD 2 or vice versa. Additional followup information to this FDD article can be found at: FDD Floppy Disk Drive Emulators and Interfaces
View solid state hard drive adapters for compact flash memory cards displayed below.
FDD Engineering and Design Notes For Direct Replacement Floppy Drives
Message: “Jim: I have been searching for a replacement for a 3.5″ FDD that reads/writes to a USB flashdrive or CF memory card.
Has the Engineering Challenge generated any solutions, yet?
I’m hoping ….
Thanks,
M”
Hello M,
I’ve gotten a bit of feedback in this area.
Apparently the signal conversion is a bit more difficult than meets the eye. I have spoken with some engineers that have a cursory understanding of the floppy disk system, but it seems the interface is more complicated than the HD solid state disk drive to an IDE port. This seems strange that a simple device (in concept) like this is not available. I would think there is an engineer out there that could do this, but so far haven’t heard from anyone that can do it.
Some people have a hard time understanding what it is being requested here.
They want to tell me that there are already external USB floppy drives. I have to tell them that is not what we need. We need a direct plug in to the FDD cable that reads/writes to a USB flashdrive or CF memory card.
Maybe I need to spell it out a little more concisely.
Many of the old industrial machines used in various product manufacturing industries, and continued to be serviced and supported throughout the manufacturing world today, especially that of the circuit board drilling equipment and PCB routing machines, along with legacy CNC metal fabrication and CNC plastic machining, mold cutting equipment, and die making machines still use either the 5¼ FDD or 3.5 inch FDD to load operating systems and store part programs on hybrid computers. These hybrid computers are not PC based and have no internal or external hard disk drives, nor are these industrial equipment machines capable of hooking up a hard disk drive through any type of IDE cable connector; since the computers do not have IDE HDD interface capabilities, nor do they have USB connector capabilities either. Other machine fields that are excellent candidates for a new style SDD FDD would include: commercial grade and high-end consumer models embroidery machine equipment, quilting machines, and programmable sewing machines used built-in floppy drives for storing patterns and job programs.
Other industrial machines were designed around the original IBM PC which preceded the “IBM XT” and included 5 ¼ inch floppy drives but no hard disk. There may not be very many of these types of machines still in existence or actively used in production today.
Machines that are still being used in production, but have their own hybrid computers, are typically using a proprietary floppy disk controller for reading and writing to the floppy disk drives. This makes disks written in the proprietary format, unable to be read with the standard PC format floppy drives.
New manufacturing equipment is very expensive. Many of these these older machines are still quite capable of producing products in a production environment, and their owners are not willing to throw them away to buy a brand new machine equipment that will produce the same amount of product, in the same amount of time.
History of the Floppy Disk Drive
Floppy drives have been around since 1971, when IBM was the first to introduce the 80 KB read-only 8-inch FD. Subsequently, IBM, Memorex, and Shugart introduced 8-inch RW SSSD and DSSD floppy drives that reached a storage capacity of 980 KB (CP/M) – 1.2 MB (MS-DOS FAT) in 1977. Then in 1978 the 5¼-inch DD was introduced which had a storage capacity of 360 KB or 800 KB. In 1982 the first 3½-inch HP single sided FDD came on the market with a capacity of 264 KB. 1984 marked the introduction of the Macintosh which used the 3½-inch (DD at release). It had a marked capacity of 1 MB, though it was more like 720 KB (400 KB SS, 800 KB DS on Macintosh, and 880 KB DS on the Amiga computer).
3½-inch and 5¼-inch floppy drives shared the market place from 1982 through the late 1990s and even some industrial equipment manufacturers continued to use 5¼-inch floppy drives just at the turn of the century, though most industrial equipment manufacturers switched to the 3½-inch FDD models long before. The floppy disk drives have now been largely superseded by USB flash drives, CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs.
R&D and Investment Capital by US Industrial Equipment Manufacturers
How did we get into this FDD mess. Part of the reluctance for US industrial equipment manufacturers to design new industrial equipment, with using new style PC based controllers had to do with the costs associated with R&D investments in both hardware and software engineering and design. Also, because of the sizeable R&D investments which many of these companies had made in the past, with specialized dedicated computers that had worked well up until this time in a manufacturing environment, top management was reluctant to spend any more investment capital into designing what was already perceived as a solid engineering design. While US companies sat on their laurels, their foreign manufacturing counterparts had leapfrogged over the controller designs, and started building controllers that were using standard, over the counter, PC based controllers, with software written to run under a Microsoft Windows environment. Now, many of the US manufacturers have been hit hard by the foreign competition and are struggling mightily to compete once again in the world markets.
What we need, is a Floppy Disk Drive Solid State Bridge or FDD SSD
What is happening for many of the end users of this legacy equipment is simply that the floppy drives are wearing out. They are getting old, and with the lack of replacement parts available, the equipment is becoming obsolete. These end users need a floppy disk drive bridge to get them over the hump, especially in these difficult economic times. They need something cheap and easy, that would quickly interface to these old floppy disk drives with a simple FDD plug and play device that requires no software drivers to be installed on the computer. Ideally speaking, it would be based on the solid state drive design similar to the SDD HDD — solid state drive hard disk drive, but for a SDD FDD — solid state drive floppy disk drive hookup.
The demise of the floppy disk drive is making it more difficult to keep aging computer systems operational. Floppies are still used for emergency boot disks on many of these aging systems that lack support for other boot media such as CD-ROMs and USB devices. Even some of the Windows Operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 relied on third party drivers, loaded on floppies. Many of the BIOS and firmware update and restore programs require they be executed from a bootable floppy disk. And if heaven forbid, during a BIOS update something goes wrong, even as of 2008, a floppy disk is required to perform a BIOS recovery after a failed BIOS update attempt.
The music industry still employs many types of electronic equipment that use standard floppy disks as a storage medium. Equipment that is quite functional, and was quite expensive to purchase, and would undoubtedly be prohibitively expensive to replace such items in the music industry as: synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and sequencers, all of which continue to use 3½-inch floppy disks. Other storage options, such as CD-R, CD-RW, network connections, and USB storage devices have taken much longer to mature in this industry. Source: Wikipedia — Floppy Disk Drive.
So, it makes sense to bridge the FDD storage technology gap between the old floppies and the newer storage device options of CDs, DVDs, external HDs, and USB storage devices.
SSD HDD — Solid State Disk Drives For Laptops, Notebooks, and PC & Apple Desktop Computers
Here are some examples of HDD solid state hard drive adapter devices that can be used on computers to replace the internal hard disk drives using an adapter plug and socket to install Compact Flash (CF). Besides the availability of hard drive adapters, a person can replace their internal hard drive with solid state drives. There are SSD HD IDE PATA for the older parallel ATA interface IDE internal hard drives and SSD HD SATA for the newer and faster serial ATA interfaces available too.
Floppy Disk Drive Bay Mounts and PCI Slot for IDE to Compact Flash Adapter
Addonics Technoloigies, located in the Silicon Valley, California, manufactures many types of adapters designed to be direct replacement devices for hard disk drives. Addonics offers a full range of storage devices based on various storage technologies – optical (CD, DVD, CDRW, DVD-R/RW), hard disk (3.5″, 2.5″, 1.8″ and Micro Drive), floppy, small digital media reader/writer and stand alone storage appliances. Most of Addonics products are designed to connect to different interface technologies – USB, Firewire, Serial ATA, CardBus, SCSI, IDE and all Windows operating systems. Some devices also have been certified to work under Linux, Mac and Solaris 8. Together with a set of complementary accessories – power cables, host controllers and adapters, Addonics products have been selected to deploy in various vertical markets and applications, including in some mission critical environments. Read more about Addonics’ storage solutions.
Many of their products are used to create your own storage size solid state HDD using Compact Flash card sizes of your choice and embed the devices in laptop and notebook computers’ HDD cavities. The item pictured above provides two slots to include both a master and slave HDD Solid State CF drive built into one compact unit. Single slot CF Hard Drive Adapters are available too. With the price of Compact Flash Memory dropping, it is very easy to see how this IDE HDD adapter to Solid State HDD could be utilized in both old and new notebook computers. To replace the internal laptop HDD drive requires simply removing the old 2.5” IDE hard drive from the 44 pin IDE connector and attach the CF adapter with the CF card inserted onto the 44 pin IDE connector with key pins matching. Then you simply tuck it away inside the old hard disk drive bay cavity with double faced tape. Read the details for this device, along with detailed illustration about replacing the hard drive with the Addonics CF HDD Adapter in a notebook or laptop computer. Adapters like this and others for the newer serial interfaces would be an excellent choice for both Apple laptops as well as any of the older PC laptops with either Microsoft Windows or Linux based operating systems.
A while back, I had the pleasure of speaking with a sales engineer at Addonics about the need for a FDD solid state replacement device. He was most helpful, but at that time, Addonics did not have anything available in the way of an adapter to go from floppy disk drives to compact flash or any other form of solid state storage. While he did mention that others had also contacted him over the years to design this type of device, he felt it would be expensive to develop the FDD solid state interface device for what was perceived as not having a very large demand for the product.
External Floppy using USB Interface
In recent years, because many of the computer manufacturers were not installing floppy disk drives into new computers, has brought about a need for an external floppy disk drive. Behold the USB plug and play Floppy Disk Drive.
Before we get to the USB Floppy Disk Drive product, there was however a plug-in module device available from Dell Computers in the UK that plugged directly into the IDE interface cable from a motherboard to a 1.4 MB Floppy Disk Drive. The manufacturer was Origin Storage, with the manufacturer’s part number being listed as: CSERIES/FDD, and the Dell part number listed as: A0769810. Not sure if this floppy disk drive adapter hookup to an IDE parallel hard drive port is still available, or who would really need or be interested in this FDD to IDE port device today, but I thought it might be interesting to note it in this article. Also note that I was not able to find that particular FDD IDE device on Dell’s US website. Maybe it is an old out-dated link on Dell’s UK website. Like I said, I’m not sure there really is a need for this device. I don’t think we need to place floppy disk drives at the end of IDE cables, but it sure would be nice to store old system software from a floppy disk on legacy, non PC based and no IDE based machines, and boot to a solid state CF adapter on the FDD cable. Let’s build a solid state floppy disk drive as a direct replacement for a FDD.
USB Floppy Disk Drives — External USB Floppy Disk Drives
Some have asked, “why not just install a USB floppy disk drive on this old equipment?” Well, the biggest hurdle with this solution idea, is old non-PC based computers do not have the option for USB interfaces. Yes, you could install an external USB FDD drive on any PC that provided for USB devices to be installed, though there are generally Microsoft Windows software requirements for hooking up most of these external USB 3.5 inch floppy disk drives.
Others have even come up with a brainstorm of a solution of having some sort of Floppy Disk Drive to USB interface. In essence, this would involve going from the FDD cable into some sort of USB storage device. That might be a possible solution, but one would have to engineer an interface to go from the floppy pin-outs and reading and writing electronic signals requirements of the floppy disk drives, to a USB interface device that was a stand-alone, no drivers required plug-in adapter unit.
Sony developed the Memory Stick/Floppy Disk Adapter MSAC-FD2M. The MSAC-FD2M adapter was specifically created for the Sony Mavica FD-95 camera. SanDisk, SmartDisk, and Dane manufactured the FlashPath Floppy Drive Card Adapter for Smartmedia memory cards. These floppy disk adapters provided a slot in the edge of a floppy disk looking unit that Smartmedia cards could be inserted and then insert the whole 3.5 inch adapter into the camera or into a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive in a PC. The application was for those computers that did not have a built-in USB port, to be able to read the Smartmedia memory cards into the PC. With the addition of USB support in newer computers, these floppy disk adapters quickly faded off the landscape though you can still find them available in some online locations.
So that gives an overview of what is available for floppy disk drives, adapters, memory cards, and solid state disk drives.
FDD to USB Emulator Engineering and Design Project
On April 2008, Google Groups sci.electronics.design section, Jim F. wrote about his venture into building a floppy drive interface and the information he is seeking.
I’ve decided on a new project (this is for fun only) where I will build my own USB thumb drive to floppy interface. My intention is to replace the single floppy drive that exists in a particular piece of legacy test equipment. This will need to be a complete hardware solution (cpld/ucontroller) interface which I can remove the floppy and replace it with my USB floppy emulator.
I’ve really never given floppy technology much thought, so I figured it would be fun to go back to the 80′s and get acquainted with it…
I’ve been searching the web but haven’t had any real luck finding *good* technical data on floppy drive electrical interface data. I’ve read a few floppy drive specification data sheets, but they seem a bit lacking. Does anyone know of a really good repository for this information?
Thanks for any help that you can offer…
Jim
This is quite an interesting thread into building the floppy interface by creating a USB thumb drive to a FDD interface. Read more at sci.electronics design. I’m not sure what the status of his engineering design is currently, but it sounded like others would certainly like to see a device like this too. In the thread you will find more technical information into the engineering and design of this FDD interface project. If anyone has any further information into this FDD adapter interface project, please post your comments here or at the Google Groups Science Electronics Design posting. Considering the reduction in the cost of USB Flash Drives, this might very well be a viable solution for the FDD adapter project.
SATA 2.5″ or 3.5″ Hard Drives and Parallel HDs, IDE 44 Pin Adapter, or IDE 40 Pin Adapter for Laptop Drives & Desktop Drives to USB Interface
Have you ever wanted to get information off an old Windows PC internal hard drive or just a dead computer? Maybe you have a dead Apple iMac G5, G4, or G3 and need to recover the data off the hard drive. Have you ever wanted to be able to install a new larger hard drive in your notebook computer, MacBook, MacBook Pro, or other Intel-based iMacs, or a desktop PC and do it quickly, with all the drivers, and software intact? Well, I’ve got the answer for you.
Here is a cool device from Apricorn that makes it easy to plug in any new or used internal hard drive from a laptop or desktop (Mac or PC), to any external USB port on another Apple MAC or a Microsoft OS PC.
Apricorn includes both the DriveWire hard drive adapter hardware, with AC power adapter, cables, and USB cable, and software to be able to clone virtually any PATA/IDE or SATA, 2.5 or 3.5 inch, hard disk drives.
The DriveWire provides a hi-speed USB 2.0 interface to: SATA, 40 pin PATA/IDE, and 44 pin PATA/IDE.
DriveWire is bundled with Apricorn’s “Upgrade Suite” which features the award winning “EZ Gig II” cloning software for Windows and “Shirt Pocket’s SuperDuper!” for Mac
System Requirements
PC
Pentium CPU II or later, 64 MB RAM or more
Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port
CD ROM or CD-RW drive
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows XP Home and Professional
Windows Vista
Mac
Apple G3 or later, 64 MB RAM or more
Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port
CD ROM or CD-RW drive
Mac OS 9.2 or later, Mac OS X 10.2 or later
Five Star Recommendation * * * * *
I have used this universal hard drive plug-in adapter quite extensively myself for all types of applications. I have cloned Apple hard drives, tested old parallel IDE disk drives, used it to backup old computer systems, recovered files off a bad PC, and used it as an external connection for a spare hard drive for both PC and Mac computers. People have used it to quickly backup their system on an old hard drive and then placed that backup into a secure fire safe, not to be touched unless all else fails. The HD adapter has been a lifesaver for me. I don’t like to touch a computer system unless I have a backup to begin with. You do not need to install any backup software or other special device drivers if you are just plugging in various hard drives.
Follow the simple instructions and make sure to set your IDE PATA hard drives only, to “Master mode” (not cable select) with the jumper setting on the hard drive, and you are set to go. Note, master mode is a jumper setting that only applies to 3.5″ PATA hard drives and determines which hard drive is the main device on the ATA bus. Most newer PC Bios systems and motherboards utilized cable select mode jumper settings on the hard drives to automatically identify which drive is the primary and which drive is the secondary based on cable hookup. In “Cable Select” mode, the black cable connector plugs into the primary master drive, gray cable connector plugs into the secondary slave drive, and the blue connector attaches to the computer motherboard or host IDE controller.
Once you have confirmed this important “master” jumper setting on the HD, then simply plug in one hard drive at a time to the DriveWire adapter and plug the USB cable into your USB port, and it shows up on your “My Computer” on a PC, or your desktop on a Apple Mac. You can copy and retrieve information from an old HD drive. That is the beauty of this plug-in device. Fast, easy to use, reliable, and really really handy too.
Pictured below, from left to right is the Apricorn adapter, USB cable, AC cable which plugs into AC adapter, AC adapter with drive plug, and software disk with both PC and MAC software included.
This device is great for IT departments, techies, and even the ordinary person that simply wants to easily plug in a hard drive to see what is on it. Check out the video on how easy it is to use.
Apricorn DriveWire – Universal Hard Drive Adapter How To Use Video
How To Instructions For Cloning or Copying Old Laptop Hard Drives to Large Hard Drives – Article Addendum 12/15/08
Here is a question from a reader in Internet land about his laptop hard drive.
I have a question. I have a small laptop hard drive (dara-206000), 6GB ATA/IDE IBM Travelstar. I want to transfer all the data from this small hard drive to another hard drive with the same features. Does this universal hard drive adapter would work for me?
Here is the answer.
It depends on how you intend to use it. First off, if the hard drive is still in the laptop, then you need to have a USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port available on your laptop to clone directly with the adapter to the computer’s internal hard drive. Then once you’ve done that, simply pull out the internal HD and replace it with the new higher capacity laptop drive.
If you have the hard drive in your hands, then you can copy the entire drive onto another computer then copy the the contents back directly onto your new hard drive and then install the new hard drive into your old laptop with all the software intact. You will probably need to use the included backup software to get all the system files transfered. You can also use backup software such as Acronis. See: Upgrading Computer Hard Drive and Backup Software
It’s important to note that the adapter is designed to only hook up one drive at a time to the output port of the adapter and then hook up the input to a USB port of a computer. The hard drive will show up as an external hard drive on the computer’s “My Computer” page for a Microsoft Windows OS PC or display on the desktop for an Apple Mac OS computer.
The Adapter is for SATA 2.5″ or 3.5″ Hard Drives and Parallel HDs, IDE 44 Pin Adapter, or IDE 40 Pin Adapter for Laptop Drives & Desktop Drives to USB 1.1 and 2.0 Interface.
Hope that helps explain the details of how to go about transferring the HD information from one HD to the other. By-the-way, you could even use the Apricorn DriveWire adapter to clone to a solid state hard drive – SSD HD too.
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Advertising Message or Sales Conversion Problem? So now you are advertising your business, and are bringing in people but hardly any of them are becoming customers. What's the problem? Is it the advertising message, the targeted audience, or the sales conversion process? Chuck McKay, an advertising and marketing consultant, who wrote a book titled "Fishing For Customers" and also writes in a blog by the same name Fishing For Customers , wrote an interesting article titled, The Flaw in the.. →ΑΩ
Getting Leads Almost Immediately There is an advertising solution for your business that can start generating leads and sales almost immediately. The solution is to use Pay-per-click, PPC advertising. This form of advertising can be highly selective, and you only have to pay for the budget that you set forth. Online Advertising Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Search all have similar forms of online advertising programs that can be targeted to select groups of individuals base.. →ΑΩ
Important to Consider Ethics in Online Advertising Ethics, honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness in advertisements are a factor to driving sales, maintaining customer trust, and building brand loyalty. What is represented about a company in an Internet ad can help a brand , or if you are not careful, it can just as easily hurt a company's brand image. Sure, there might be short term gains in using unethical advertising techniques which distort or are blatantly misleading, but in the long .. →ΑΩ
Targeted Advertising is the Key to Success Three Questions to Answer BEFORE You Spend One Cent on Advertising I worked my way through college employed at a termite and pest control company. Pretty humble beginnings for an aspiring leader! In California, where I lived, a home cannot be bought or sold without a clean bill of health from a termite and pest control company. As they look for these wood eating insects, termite inspectors also report any dry rot and structural flaws in the.. →ΑΩ
Search Engine Exposure Picture Courtesy of NBC - Deal or No Deal Visit Sales and Marketing Today. Is Your Website Exposed Online In The Search Engines? From the standpoint of Internet marketing and online advertising, having a website with good Internet exposure is one of the key factors on being discovered for your keywords. If your company is not a household or well known Internet brand, or you wish to improve company brand recognition online, then this search .. →ΑΩ
for the older parallel ATA interface IDE internal hard drives and 
