Laptops have low powered usb ports so you need extra power to power a
hard drive or cdrom. I bought a slim cdrom drive from colordrives
that came with a extra connector that connects to the mouse/keyboard
port, and it works with laptos using this extra power source. I
also bought a ide usb adpapter which came with a separate 120volt
adater. It worked fine with my laptops using this power
adapter. This ide usb adapter is ubiquitous on ebay.
However, it comes with no case/enlosure and the power supply went
out on me after a few days of use. I contacted colordrives about
it and he directed to send it back with ebay item number. I paid
to send it out to him weeks ago and I have yet to hear from him.
I would expect a similar experience by buing it from a different ebay
seller. These adapters sell for about $15. I have several
drives thatI would like to use with my bare bones(<$100) laptops,
but I am afraid to invest in anymore of those adapters. I also
bought a slim 2.5 -9mm usb hard drive enclosure kit from
colordrives. It works fine with my desktop, but wont spin even
with the extra usb connector on my laptop with two usb ports.
Guide created: 09/01/06 (updated 08/04/08)
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