Portable Hard Disk Drive - DIY

Barneyballbags

Barneyballbags

Old School Grand Master
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OK, so I've got a redundant 500GB Virgin TiVo box sat at home, which Virgin were supposed to pick up when my contract ended back in February, but never did.

There's a 500GB hard disk sat inside it doing nothing - would I be right in thinking that I can remove it, plug it into one of those USB cradles and use it as an external HDD?

Alternatively - does anyone want a TiVo box? ;)
 
You can indeed, I actually have a couple of empty external drive enclosures, USB 2 with a SATA interface internally. Is is a SATA drive? I can look one out at the weekend and fire it off to you.
 
highlandsflyer":1833zdud said:
You can indeed, I actually have a couple of empty external drive enclosures, USB 2 with a SATA interface internally. Is is a SATA drive? I can look one out at the weekend and fire it off to you.
Click to expand...

I'll double check later - from what I can find online, some boxes have SATA drives and others are IDE so it depends on what I've got.

If it's a SATA drive I'll let you know and I'll fire some beer tokens your way :D

Thanks
 
Timely discussion this, as my ext HDD is driving me nuts!

Worked fine on a variety of laptops, plu & play, no drivers, but then seemingly packed in.
Removed from cradle and fitted to a tower PC = fine
Bought a new cradle, and still nothing. It doesnt register when you plug it in via USB, but will be present when plugged in internally in a tower

Annoying, as entire movie, series and music collection is on it, and my laptop is getting full (down to last 80gb of space)
Dont want to buy another ext hdd, and we only use a laptop at home
 
Is it the kind that comes with a psu or the kind that is powered by USB? Sometimes the powerdraw/supply for cheap USB gadgets vary.

See if you can borrow a third enclosure from somewhere - especially a powered one as this will tell you more about the problem.

Also have you tried all the USB ports on your laptop? It's not unusual for them to vary.
 
Both the old and new cases are powered, and the drive spins up ok...

checked all ports on more than one machine, pc and laptop

G
 
Raging_Bulls":1qsyczyn said:
Have you tried another USB cable too? That sounds like the only item you haven't changed.
Click to expand...
....many, many times!
sorry for hijacking the thread

G
 
Then you're probably safest as treating the drive as dodgy. Worst case scenario is that it could be a sign of impending failure. It's probably just something silly like sensitivity to badly regulated voltage/current in the cheapo psu's on the caddy's as compared with the much cleaner supply on the pc but what would you lose if it wasn't?
 
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