( 106 reviews )
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( 0 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Aug 8 2009
The software did not follow the sequence expected and was not able to clone the 100GB hard drive on my Thinkpad to a new 500GB drive.
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( 0 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Aug 7 2009
I ordered this item, as it was recommended to me by the website as an item purchased by people who also purchased the disk drive I ordered, a CMS Peripheral 80GB HARD DRIVE FOR DELL ( DELL2600-80.0). After opening the package, I found I could not use it with my type of disk drive I ordered. Those who purchased this item, when purchasing the disk drive I ordered, are out of luck.
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Posted: Aug 1 2009
This product has two components: a hard drive enclosure that lets you use an internal laptop drive as if it were an external USB drive, and software that lets you backup or clone a hard drive. Each of these two components can be used independently of the other. I bought this product to swap my laptop hard drive for a bigger one. The way this is supposed to work is that you get a new drive, convert it into an external drive by putting it in the Apricorn enclosure, use the Apricorn software to copy the old hard drive onto the new one, then take the new drive out of the enclosure and put it into the laptop. Unfortunately I couldn't get the enclosure to work. In most of my attempts, Windows didn't see the drive. A couple of times Windows saw the drive but then was unable to use it. I couldn't read from it, write to it, or format it. This happened on both a laptop running Vista and a desktop running XP MCE. I suspect the problem was power. The kit does not come with a power cord, so the new hard drive has to be powered over the USB connection. I suspect this just isn't enough juice for my new drive. Fortunately, the Apricorn software is robust enough to clone the disk in two steps rather than one IF you've got another external drive available. First the software creates an image of your original disk in a file on the external drive. Then you put the new drive into your laptop and use the Apricorn software to copy the image from the external drive to the new laptop drive. Worked like a charm. [To be clear, the image it puts on the external drive is just a file; the external drive contents are NOT wiped out.] I wish I would have thought of the external drive approach before I wasted two hours with the Apricorn enclosure. The end result was exactly right, but the problems with the enclosure soured the experience for me. I recommend this kit if you've got another external drive you can use during the process. If not, you better be sure you have the right power cable or know where to get one.
