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OT: What's the best? / Where do I get?

OT: What's the best? / Where do I get?

Gutting the old XP machine, and saving some useful pieces...

WD Caviar SATA hard drive, 3.5"; need USB adapter and enclosure

Multicard reader (USB driven), SMD/xD, SD/MMC, CF Microdrive, PRO Card slots, slots face front much like a floppy drive, mounted in a typical drive slide; so I need just a back cover for protection.

What's best out there? Who's the best source?

Thanks! ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

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| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Reply to
Jim Thompson
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"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Before you gut the machine, try loading Mint Linux on it.... I pulled a chassis out of the dumpster, replaced 10 caps added a 1.5 TB hard drive and upped the ram to 8 GB... System words beautifully under 64 bit Mint and I use virtualbox to run XP and Win 7 on it.

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to snipped-for-privacy@netfront.net

Reply to
Jon

I've had good luck with Tigerdirect for this sort of thing. Last thing I bought from them was a USB hard-drive enclosure, for a 2.5" drive I needed to resurrect from a dead Dell XPS laptop. Works great, $14. Look around at Tigerdirect.com. YMMV.

-Peter

Reply to
Peter McMullin 

--
Gut already complete.
		
                                        ...Jim Thompson
Reply to
Jim Thompson

The Card Reader can be seen here...

formatting link

Does there exist an enclosure for such a structure? Maybe something that slips over from the back side?

Or do I need to roll my own ?:-( ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

I keep one of these in my computer bag:

formatting link

Reply to
hamilton

Jim Thompson Inscribed thus:

Just stuff it into a drive bay and plug the USB connector onto one on the mainboard.

--
Best Regards:
                          Baron.
Reply to
Baron

Ain't no drive bays on my laptop ;-) So I'm running it external.

I'm studying how the faceplate is mounted. It _may_ attach to the PCB. In that case I maybe can just stick it in any old black plastic case with the faceplate hiding my inability to machine a precise hole size :-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson Inscribed thus:

Maybe I should have read the whole post first :-( It would be more cost effective to just buy a card reader that plugs into a USB port. I got one for $5 in China town New York at Christmas ! It works just fine and supports six or seven different memory cards. The one it doesn't is the Sony mem stick.

--
Best Regards:
                          Baron.
Reply to
Baron

Crikey! Thanks for the nudge! Found it right away on Amazon ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

If that's Caviar Green then it is programmed to kill itself by powering down after only 8 seconds, so it will go through its rated lifetime of 50,000 load cycles in a few months. You have to run this utility from a DOS boot floppy (I have no idea why western digital is using a DOS compiler) while it is still on the mobo and not a USB adapter.

formatting link

If it's not a 'Green' this doesn't apply. Since it runs from DOS the utility doesn't work on their packaged USB drives which are Green internally, so don't buy those. Seagate only, and their greens are ok too. (Seagate and WD are the only 2 left since they bought out all the competition.)

If you have a WD USB drive it's better to leave it unplugged so it doesn't cycle more than necessary.

--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.
Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

Well, that settles that. Tigerdirect, which is not known for having all that good of prices, needs about a thousand scripts. Not on my computer. POS site created by junior grade script kiddies.

?-(

Reply to
josephkk

Card

typical

It should just fit in most any standard external case. Just have to run its cord out instead of the existing connector.

?-)

Reply to
josephkk

Bought a whole new card reader for less than the price of a case ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

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