Recovering things from a dead desktop

[Anduril]

Looking to get some of my questions answered since this is the first time I've needed to recover a hard drive among other things from a dead desktop.



When looking for an enclosure, would this hard drive, which came from a desktop that did not have a 3.0USB port, support a 3.0USB enclosure?

Also I took a look at ME since that seems to be the main place to sell any variety of enclosures and I thought the enclosures would be cheaper? So if anybody has a better idea of where I should be looking for these, that would be appreciated.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39499

Also, I'm thinking I have to go through Microsoft for this but I do have a copy of Win8/Microsoft Office 2010 Pro one the hard drive. Would I have to boot from the hard drive through another computer, uninstall Microsoft Office to be able to use the product key again? How about the Win8 upgrade?


Thanks for your time.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk HD

[Hemi-Cuda]

last time one of my hard drives died, i used one of these to hook it up and salvage the data off of it

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX13663

[Rathji]

Any hard drive that you could put into a USB 3.0 enclosure will work with it.

You should be able to use use your product keys for Office and Windows 8 to use them again. A small chance you might have to call Microsoft if the activation fails, but I really doubt it.

You do need the original install disc/files, of course.

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

last time one of my hard drives died, i used one of these to hook it up and salvage the data off of it

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX13663

For $29.99 it would be better to shell out $5-$20 more to get an actual enclosure. Sure it is a bit more work but then you can use it afterwards. Another reason is the build quality of those Bytec adapters is a bit less than stellar. They do work really well though, if you just want to pull data from a drive quickly without removing it from a case, or messing with an enclosure. The other nice thing is it supports both IDE and SATA, so if you come across a IDE drive you don't need to have a separate IDE enclosure (which are fairly hard to get nowdays).

Personally, I keep one of these around for that type of work. You used to be able to get them at Memex, but I can't see any on thier site. Plus they work for both 2.5" and 3.5" sata drives.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Anduril

When looking for an enclosure, would this hard drive, which came from a desktop that did not have a 3.0USB port, support a 3.0USB enclosure?

Nope, the hard drive has its own interface, most like some version of SATA unless it is REALLY old.

What Hemi-Cuda posted or what you posted should both work, I have one of these: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39503 just because putting in bare drives is something I do enough of that I don't want to have to open and close an external enclosure over and over.

Originally Posted by Anduril

Also I took a look at ME since that seems to be the main place to sell any variety of enclosures and I thought the enclosures would be cheaper?

You could check NCIX or Direct Canada, and if you find something cheaper Memory Express will pricematch. Or use shopbot.ca to do some price comparisons, Newegg.ca has the one HC posted for $20

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...INC-_-12156102

Originally Posted by Anduril

Also, I'm thinking I have to go through Microsoft for this but I do have a copy of Win8/Microsoft Office 2010 Pro one the hard drive. Would I have to boot from the hard drive through another computer, uninstall Microsoft Office to be able to use the product key again? How about the Win8 upgrade?

No to both for having to uninstall to use the product key again. For Office you should be fine with installing it and activating it, with Windows 8 that's more complicated, if you're putting it on a completely new computer, you might have to phone in to get it activated (I've had to do that before, they just ask what happened and I told them I was rebuilding the computer with some new components, which I was, be honest).

With previous versions of Windows the OEM versions weren't supposed to be transferred from one PC to another while a full version could, I'm not sure if this restriction still exists in Windows 8. If you got a full version or upgrade version you will probably be ok, but if you got an OEM version it might not be movable.

[Anduril]

Originally Posted by photon

Nope, the hard drive has its own interface, most like some version of SATA unless it is REALLY old.

What Hemi-Cuda posted or what you posted should both work, I have one of these: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39503 just because putting in bare drives is something I do enough of that I don't want to have to open and close an external enclosure over and over.



You could check NCIX or Direct Canada, and if you find something cheaper Memory Express will pricematch. Or use shopbot.ca to do some price comparisons, Newegg.ca has the one HC posted for $20

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...INC-_-12156102



No to both for having to uninstall to use the product key again. For Office you should be fine with installing it and activating it, with Windows 8 that's more complicated, if you're putting it on a completely new computer, you might have to phone in to get it activated (I've had to do that before, they just ask what happened and I told them I was rebuilding the computer with some new components, which I was, be honest).

With previous versions of Windows the OEM versions weren't supposed to be transferred from one PC to another while a full version could, I'm not sure if this restriction still exists in Windows 8. If you got a full version or upgrade version you will probably be ok, but if you got an OEM version it might not be movable.

Thanks guys. Still little unsure about the 3.0USB part. It's nit inky getting to work but also having 3.0 speeds when transferring. Going with photon says, it would make sense that I need a 2.0 enclosure.

Scribbled with the Note II

[photon]

You'll likely get much faster speeds with a 3.0 enclosure. The interface from the drive to the enclosure's electronics is SATA which is fast, and then the interface from the enclosure's electronics to whatever external interface is separate. If you get a 2.0 enclosure you'll be limited buy the 2.0 speed, a 3.0 enclosure will be faster.

[Anduril]

Sounds good then! I saw some tutorials mentioning how enclosures would come with a kit. It seems like it's limited to installing the hard drive and not removing it where I would need separate tools?

Scribbled with the Note II

[Rathji]

Unless there is a significant discount over a 3.0 one , I would not purchase a USB 2.0 enclosure at this point in time. It is backwards compatible so even if you don't have USB 3.0 on your computer currently, it still works at 2.0 speeds.