Reddit mentions of Inateck USB 3.0 to SATA Dual-Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Clone Function fit 2.5 and 3.5 inch HDD SSD SATA (SATA I/II/III), Support 2X 8TB and UASP, Black FD2002

Get yourself an HDD dock

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00N1KXE9K/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499868239&sr=8-2&pi=SL75_QL70&keywords=hard+drive+dock

Then just build some storage slots for your spare drives and use them like flash drives

You're probably looking for something like this Just search hard drive dock and you'll see a bunch of other ones as well.

Anything on Amazon like this and here's a guide for you to swap it out. It's super simple.

If you want to clone the HDD you have now because you have games and stuff you don't want to delete I would suggest to buy a HDD cloner. Its really easy and I've done it multiple times for just cloning when I did upgrades.

Personal note: $139 for 1tb SSD was like $500 back when it released. I don't even think if they had 1TB SSD. Crazy. If I wasn't already at 1TB I would buy, but I'm going to just wait for the PS5.

Easy. Hard drive toaster.

You shuold be able to. Either but something like this https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-FD2002-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1522154062&sr=8-5&keywords=hard+drive+docking+station or if you're using a new desktop just connect the new hard drive to sata and power cables it should come up. Just make sure the computer is off then you do it.

I use Samba on my Pi, but there are plenty of other ways to set up a NAS, such as NFS. You don't really need something like unRAID or FreeNAS for a NAS.

You can have a SATA dock(something like this) to hook it up those drives to your Pi. I use my Pi primarily for music, and I just use the SD card, since I don't have any spare drives lying around. I find it to be enough for my purposes, but I'm not sure if a Pi is powerful enough for what you want. I think you should try it and see how it works out.

Honestly, IDE drives are so out of date you're not going to find any larger products like that which supports it. The best you can hope for is an adapter that does a single IDE drive like this: https://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-30504-Serial-Adapter/dp/B000UO6C5S/

Honestly, if it were me, I'd move that data to another drive, and then trash them and get something like this for sata drives: https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Function-Tool-Free-FD2002/dp/B00N1KXE9K/

OP, before you spend 1,200ish on fixing the drive, try researching this little tool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N1KXE9K
Read the reviews, lots of people say they used it on crashed hard drives. You'll need a HDD of the same capacity, but you might be able to borrow one from a friend, or might have one just lying around. Couldn't hurt to try at a cost of $40 shipped vs the 1,200 quoted.

So, I have done this. It isn't hard if you have the right tools. What I used was a double external hot swap bay [like this] (https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function-FD2002/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1541712633&sr=1-6&keywords=dual+external+hard+drive) and a piece of software I got off a Humble Bundle, I can't remember what it was but it was a duplication software. Removed both drives and plugged the whole thing into a different computer then it duplicated the drive in about a half an hour.

I bought one of these:

Inateck FD2002 USB 3.0 to SATA Dual-Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Clone Function for 2.5"/3.5" HDD SSD SATA (SATA I/ II/ III), Support 2x 8TB and UASP, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_5DFEAb7NZ0NPC


Used it many times for my personal equipment but I’m hesitant to use it on client computers. Who knows if it loads Chinese backdoors or something...

It clones ssds really quickly though!

this is the docking station. its very basic. Would I need more of something like a NAS to accomplish this?


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was in the same boat as you a few months ago. Here's what I did.

1. I went to Amazon and ordered this HD cloner.
   
2. When the cloner arrived, I plugged it in and inserted the target SSD and my old drive with Windows on it.
   
3. I then pressed the clone button.
   
   Perfect copy, worked like a charm. No muss, no fuss.

I actually use a physical device. Mostly just because it's super useful for other things in the IT field, but it works perfectly and quickly for cloning to a new physical drive.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Actually there's a two drive USB 3 docking station that has built in drive to drive cloning.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also I like Clonezilla

only have windows running at the moment also saw something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1KXE9K/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3GKWI06GSC9E3

but was hoping for a software solution but i can get that if it will work fine.

Well if I were a computer forensics expert, I would use something like a USB hard drive dock such as one of these. Then I'd take an image of the hard drive preserving its state at acquisition. SSD hard drives are a little more complicated due to the fact that the hard drive has its own internal management software which lead to such effects as erased data becoming irretrievable merely by being turned on whereas magnetic disks do not have that problem. Oh, but what do I know, I'm just a Phd of computer science.

Use usb? It will work fine over USB 2.0.

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-FD2002-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1520028041&sr=8-3&keywords=dual+hard+drive+dock&dpID=41F11fK4WuL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Yes. Sadly you have to manually move each and every game individually, there is no bulk copy. So you can copy stuff off old to internal, then once internal is full, plug in new one and move it over. Then repeat.

Another thing you can do is buy a device like this, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=

This will allow you to do an exact clone of the drive without needing to manually copy stuff over. It also serves as a dock so it is a useful piece of tech.

You can straight clone the drive with Macrium software.

You will need a drive bay.

If the drives are the same size it or the new drive is larger you can just use a hardware clone machine.

In both cases I suggest this one. It has a nice offline clone feature.

Inateck USB 3.0 to SATA Dual-Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Clone Function fit 2.5"/3.5" HDD SSD SATA (SATA I/II/ III), Support 2x 8TB and UASP, Black (FD2002) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fiVKBbZ3B0DXQ

yeah you should be able to feel it spinning. the usb to sata cables only work well with 2.5 laptop hdds and ssds. you'd need a dock of some sort that is externally powered https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function-FD2002/dp/B00N1KXE9K/

Photographer here, so I may not be working with as much data as everyone else here--although I'm am still dealing with 500-3000 raw files a week--and I agree with /u/tonydaazntiger319, it'd be better to get into the habit of backing up onto physical drives. Last year I moved from using external WD drives to a proper HDD backup and so far it's worked brilliantly.

I use a [Dual Hard Drive Dock] (https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Function-Tool-Free-FD2002/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1499287048&sr=1-1&keywords=dual+hard+drive+dock) and each year I buy two [3TB Seagate HDD's] (https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM008/dp/B01IEKG4NE/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1499287170&sr=1-2&keywords=3tb) titled "2017". I have one drive off-site at a friends house and each week I grab it and bring it to my place and use Carbon Copy Cloner to create an identical copy.

I need to start looking into a cloud backup solution (any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, now that amazon isn't offering their unlimited prime backup) so that I have three copies but I never delete files off of my computer until they are backed up on both drives. Works great for me and is pretty cheap when you consider the cost of lost data. Hope that helps:)

I thought about something similar from Inateck, a drive cloning dock. This would allow me to keep more drives offline with easy cloning, but you can access drives separately. Downside of course is that it's wired, so that means taking up desk space when I want to use it.

I'm in the same situation as you. My WD My Book crapped the bed. It still spins up but the computer sees no writable partitions. The I/O light doesn't even blink anymore. Just stays solid. Although, I got the cable just right once and I was able to slowly copy a few files over before the problem started repeating again. So this leads me to believe it is a port/cable issue. It was even still under warranty. But you have to ship it back to them and they ship you a NEW one. If you want your data recovered you have to send to to a third party first. WD says they destroy your data but I don't trust it.

The WD My Books are just HDDs with a shell so you should be able to swap the HD with another working WD Mybook

You can also take the case off and it has an adapter on the HDD to change it from 2.5SATA to USB 3.0 micro b that you can slide off and make it a normal HDD. So if you have an extra PC or trust yourself installing a second HDD in your current PC you could try that. I attempted this and failed. But I contributed it to trying to install a 4TB hd on an old dell with 2GHz processor and 2gbs ram. Even when I set my bios to boot to the Dells original Seagate HDD, the dell still tries to boot from the 4tb WD drive that never had an OS on it. And plugging it into an already booted computer failed too (risky move but I was desperate).

I've got three more solutions I'm gonna try. Gonna email WD an ask istead of replacing my drive if they will send me a new SATA to SS adapter and a new cable that comes with it. If not, Hopefully a USB 3.0 to 2.5 SATA cable does the trick.

And if all else fails. An HDD dock seems like my favorite and an all round better solution than external WD my books.

You shouldn't have to solder anything. But I haven't been successful at recovering the data so what do I know hahaha

Good luck.

Here is the best way I've discovered to do this:

With a inexpensive drive duplicator (around $35 U.S.), you can put the source drive (HDD) in in the source bay and the new, bare, drive (SSD) in the "target" drive slot.

Then, with the press of a button (you don't need to be connected to a PC to do this) all of the contents from the source drive gets duplicated onto the target drive. Plug the new SSD in the computer and power it up. Easy!

The problem? The target drive must be the same size or larger than the source drive. It would not work in your case. The process is a byte-by-byte duplication.

It's good to have the duplicator around, because you can later buy internal hard drives and use the duplicator as a docking station. Plug it into your PC, and suddenly you have one or two more storage drives.

So, my suggestion would be to buy an SSD the same size or larger than the spinning drive and get the cheap duplicator/docking station. A bit more money, yes, but a useful purchase.

Otherwise, you have to find a software solution to the problem, and software solutions (as you've discovered) are tricky.

HERE is an example of the dock.

Hope that helps.

Edit:

You can go as simple as this: https://www.amazon.com/SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable-Black/dp/B07FDTY299/ (won't work with 3.5 HDD)

This will work with 3.5" HDD: www.amazon.com/SATA-Drive-Adapter-Converter-Power/dp/B07PVX682Q/

Or a little more advanced like this: https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function-FD2002/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ (I personally have this but admittedly I haven't even opened it up or used it yet..)

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function-FD2002/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=clone+hard+drive&qid=1562008527&s=gateway&sr=8-3

i bought this badass little dude

theres other types of stations too, i just like this one because it covered the HDD and looked nice and slick.

for instance theres this one. it offers 2 slots at once, but they stick out lookin all derpy and shit lol.

Disclaimer: I’m not a tech expert, these are just the steps I would take.

I’m not sure if using an ethernet cable would work, but I’d try it.

You could rig a blank cd with his drivers from HP’s site and try that.

If neither of the above work, my next idea could be scary if you’re not comfortable opening up computers or annoying because it could require some equipment that you don’t have. Take out his hard drive and put it either in a desktop with the appropriate SATA cables or in an external hard drive unit. This is the one I use. Add the drivers onto the the hard drive using another computer. Disconnect the hard drive after making sure it’s safe to do so and reinstall it into his laptop.

Other people have suggested probably safer options, haha. I just thought I’d throw in my two cents.

Edit: Someone mentioned that the drivers may not be compatible with win7 and I think that’s very important to check.

Buy a clone bay and save yourself major time. This is what I use in my office.

Would you recommend something like this?

Amazon Thingy

EDIT - or something fancy like this is pretty neat, or is it gimmiky?