Palm-Size Device Recovers Data Fast

At one time or another, just about every solution provider out there encounters a dead system, in which the only recoverable components are the hard drives and the data in them. The typical course of action is to remove the hard drives and install them on another system back at the shop—a slow and costly process, for sure.

But what if the data could be recovered instantly? The answer lies in a palm-size adapter from Poway, Calif.-based Apricorn Inc., called DriveWire. The DriveWire adapter connects IDE, SATA and Notebook IDE/PATA drives. Each side of the device hooks to a different hard drive. Power is supplied through a power adapter that provides the five volts needed to run the hard drives.

The Ingredients: • PRODUCT NAME: DriveWire Universal Hard Drive Adapter • PRICE: $39.99 • WARRANTY/SUPPORT: One year limited warranty • COMPANY: Apricorn Inc.   Poway, Calif.   (800) 458-5448   www.apricorn.com

Collecting the data is easy. DriveWire supports USB 2.0, including USB 1.1, so drives are instantly detected on a Windows system and assigned a drive letter. After several tests with old drives, DriveWire performed well. Data transfer rates seen in the CRN Test Center were on par with the hard drives of all three types with no noticeable delays.

DriveWire comes with EZ Gig II cloning software, which supports FAT and NTFS file formats and can image entire drives and individual folders. Test Center reviewers tested EZ by imaging a drive right out of a DriveWire connection using high compression. The image was created right onto a DVD R/W disk. We didn't notice any corruption during the transfer, so the data was buffered correctly. EZ proved to be a good add-on to DriveWire. The software supports USB 1.1, so it's fully compatible with DriveWire and old PCs.

After several tests between Windows 2000 and XP, the adapter was able to recover data from old IDE drives without power or access speed problems. The two OSes are supported with Plug-n-Play, so during testing drivers were needed.