How to deal with unreliable IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 adaptor ?

[binsar.grey]

i had been using this (image attached below) SATA to USB adaptor (with power supply) to connect an internal (2 Terabyte) WD-HD to my laptop (Vista) and it worked okay for archiving purposes (used maybe once every 2 months) over a year or so.

now, however, the connection drops and i am thinking it is a power supply issue - can anyone comment if there are solutions to prevent this lost connection (usually for files more than 500 MB in size - ie. it cannot maintain the connection for a sustained period of time)

it does seem a hardware issue, i have tried connecting it to another laptop running Win XP but it doesn't get detected - to be precise, assigned a drive letter.

EDIT:
i have tried using the Disk Management console and the volume shows up but has no letter assigned, and the "Change Drive Letter" is grayed out.
FWIW: the 'Status' shows "Healthy (GPT Protective Partition)" and the free space is 100% when i know there is data ON it.

 

[CountMike]

Just get a new one, prefferably USB3.

 

[binsar.grey]

seriously, that's the answer - just "buy a new one" ?!
it's an old laptop and it does NOT have USB 3.0
is there no other alternative, can anyone confirm it *is in fact* (or very likely) a power supply issue causing the dropout ?
and not some other issue that can be dealt with by software settings.

 

[USAFRet]

seriously, that's the answer - just "buy a new one" ?!
it's an old laptop and it does NOT have USB 3.0
is there no other alternative, can anyone confirm it *is in fact* (or very likely) a power supply issue causing the dropout ?
and not some other issue that can be dealt with by software settings.

Troubleshooting 101:
With that same adapter, does this happen on any other system?
With that same adapter, what happens with a different drive?

It may well be the adapter is hosed. Or it may be fine.
It may be the specific USB port.
You need to test in multiple use cases.

 

[CountMike]

seriously, that's the answer - just "buy a new one" ?!
it's an old laptop and it does NOT have USB 3.0
is there no other alternative, can anyone confirm it *is in fact* (or very likely) a power supply issue causing the dropout ?
and not some other issue that can be dealt with by software settings.

Yes, seriously, those are cheap built universal adapters with contacts that do not hold good. If it's a SATA HDD, get adapter with only SATA connector and no SATA cable.
Another question, is it 2.5" or 3.5" HDD ?

 

[mdd1963]

all IDE drives should be in the trash anyway...; certainly all must be 10 years old and on their last leg anyway.....

Get a quality docking station for 2.5"/3.5" SATA drives....

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-HDD-Docking-Station-Duplication/dp/B00G6TG5YE