I recently had to replace a failing hard drive on a friend\’s laptop. Yeah, I can hear the groans. The key word was \”failing\”, not \”failed\”. I bought a new hard drive from NewEgg, and (here comes the testimonial part) I bought a thing called DriveWire from an outfit called Apricorn. This DriveWire thing consisted of a small interface box with connectors on all sides, a power cable, and a USB cable. The new drive plugged into one side, and the power and USB into another. (The other two are more connectors for different drive types).
It came with a CD, and promises that the data transfer would cause no pain. I popped the CD into the drive, powered up the laptop, and the CD booted to Apricorm\’s software. Basically, there was one button to push – \”Copy drive A to drive B\”. I pushed it. It started up, and a few hours later (OK, I don\’t know how long – I went to bed) the copy was completed. I swapped drives, powered up, and the laptop booted. I defragged the drive without problem, and other than the laptop saying \”Hey, I see a new hard drive\”, there was no muss, no fuss, no pain at all.
Just like I like it! I think this was the best $35 I\’ve ever spent.
I highly recommend the Apricorm DriveWire.
I also recommend NewEgg, but that\’s another story.
