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Who needs the hassle, my time is worth something too. That took a whole lot of time and after all that work it still doesnt work on windows 7. So he gave me an site to down load the proper software, then I had to burn the Iso image onto a cd. Now I have to call the manufacturer this afternoon and see if he sent the right update. I bought this to install new hard drives into different types of hard drives ( sata - Pata) it works great on all my windows xp computers however it won't work on windows 7 64 bit systems. I called the manufacturer and he told me what I already knew that it won't work on Windows 7. I'm really mad that when I bought it nowhere could I find information about compatibility.
The important thing is that it does make a bootable clone and for me worked flawlessly. Highly recommended. WAY faster than re-installing the system, moving over all the data from a backup, etc. I used it to clone my 200 GB MacBook Pro HD to a new 500 GB drive (I let it do this overnight), then simply swapped the drives and re-booted the computer. I took his advice and picked up one as well. My father-in-law recommended this after visiting a local computer store where the employees mentioned that they all use this (which after using it I actually believe). It is a great device / huge time-saver. The included software works great (be sure to get an update from the website if you use a Mac / likely also true for you Windows folks out there).I will also use this to access drives that I have pulled from retired computers - a bit more backup space perfect for those drives not big enough to justify a dedicated drive enclosure.The software has a simple interface and is not totally clear on the fact it makes a bootable clone (though you can see something like "make bootable" as a grayed-out item in its "to do" list as it copies the files).
I main thing I use this for cloning disks and hooking up infected hard drives that have a hard time booting up. I wish I would have bought one of these years ago. I setup one workstation the way I want it and pull the drive out and go down the line imaging the rest of the computers. I have even used it with mac.
I usually put a book of sticky pads under it so it's level when its connected to the hard drive (this has been the cause of some of the connection issues). I have had a few hard drives not show up using the included CD, but this seems to be fixed when I recheck my connections.I don't like how the thing is made of cheap plastic, they could have made it a little bit more durable. You do have to be careful when you are hooking up the power and these are stated in the user manual. I have a total of 32 remote offices, with some of them 2 1/2 hours away. I have owned one of these for about two years now and looking at buying another one for my side business. I have backed up failing hard drives, used it to pull off users documents of a failing hard drive, moving to a larger hard drive. I find myself using this thing more than I use Norton Ghost.
I also noticed that sometimes the connector can be cock-eyed. I work as a network specialist and was looking for a small device that I could carry with me to my remote locations. I probably have used it in every other way also without problems. I just looked at some of the negative reviews, and have not experienced any of these problems (frying hard drives).
It's an amazing product. It's a massive time saver. SMART drives are meant to predict imminent failure before it's too late.In any case, my new larger HDD arrived today along with the Apricorn Drivewire Universal HDD Adaptor. Instead, I used the Apricorn Drivewire to "clone" my old drive to the new drive and was back up and running, start to finish, in less than an hour and a half. I recently received a warning from Windows 7 stating that my hard disk drive was very near failure and to backup everything immediately, which I did. The next thing I did while my PC was still functioning was to research the reason for this dire warning and discovered SMART HDD's track certain performance parameters and notify the user when one or more of those parameters near or exceed specific threshold values. If I was forced to format and reinstall all software and user settings, it would've taken at least a full day.
I've pulled data off all my old drives. Works great. and even for a couple of friends.
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