Sometimes you might need to hook up a computer hard drive to another. Scanning an infected drive for example or using a second drive as a backup drive, mainly what I use them for.
To do so you would need some hard drive to USB adapter. One such cable I have is a SATA to USB adapter. It has a plug-in on one end that is compatible with most SATA hard drives and two USB adapters on the other end to plug into your computer. Then the hard drive attached will show up as another hard drive letter on your computer.
This cable only works with laptop SATA drives and not with desktop ones. Desktop drives need a external power source. That is where the following adapter comes in handy.
This one can also handle SATA drives without the power adapter being plugged in.
What inspired me to write this is an old hard drive I came across. It had a weird pin plugin setup that wasn't compatible with any of the adapters I previously have and I've been searching online for a compatible one for awhile now. I decided to post the picture on some computer forums to see if anyone could suggest some adapter.
They suggested that this was an adapter already attached and all I had to do was remove it. This thought had crossed my mind before but when I tried to pull it off it seemed pretty solid and I didn't want to break it. So I decided to give it another shot. If I did break it, it was a old 60GB drive salvaged from an old XP laptop that I didn't seem to have any option to use it - so no real lost.
So after fiddling around a bit I managed to get this thing off and sure enough, underneath was a more standard IDE connection that fit my powered adapter. I've now gained 60Gb more of backup storage space.
By the way I buy most of my supplies on ebay.