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

Question

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 enclosureMulticard reader (USB driven), SMD/xD, SD/MMC, CF Microdrive, PRO Cardslots, slots face front much like a floppy drive, mounted in a typicaldrive 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  |    1962     |             I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Jon · Accepted Answer

"Jim Thompson"  wrote in message news:Before you gut the machine, try loading Mint Linux on it....I pulled a chassis out of the dumpster, replaced 10 capsadded a 1.5 TB hard drive and upped the ram to 8 GB...System words beautifully under 64 bit Mint and Iuse virtualbox to run XP and Win 7 on it. --- Posted via news:// - Complaints to ---

Peter McMullin · Answer

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

Jim Thompson · Answer

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

Jim Thompson · Answer

The Card Reader can be seen here...Does there exist an enclosure for such a structure?  Maybe somethingthat 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  |    1962     |             I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

hamilton · Answer

I keep one of these in my computer bag:

Baron · Answer

Jim Thompson Inscribed thus:Just stuff it into a drive bay and plug the USB connector onto one onthe mainboard. -- Best Regards:                          Baron.

Jim Thompson · Answer

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 thePCB.  In that case I maybe can just stick it in any old black plasticcase with the faceplate hiding my inability to machine a precise holesize :-)		                                        ...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  |    1962     |             I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Baron · Answer

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 plugsinto a USB port.  I got one for $5 in China town New York atChristmas !  It works just fine and supports six or seven differentmemory cards.  The one it doesn't is the Sony mem stick.-- Best Regards:                          Baron.

Jim Thompson · Answer

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

Tom Del Rosso · Answer

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.

josephkk · Answer

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

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

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