Accessing SATA drive in USB docking station?

Hi Guys,

I have an 80g sata drive (secondary internal) that was getting quite full.

I went to buy a new terabyte drive and bought an external docking station while at it.

I swapped out the the two drives, thinking I would simply put the 80g in the docking station and transfer the 80g back over to the internal terabyte drive via the docking station.

However, W7 doesn't see the drive, as I remember an ide drive being seen from a docking station back in XP..

Any tips on ways to mount this drive or alternative workflows to migrate from the 80g to the tera without first swapping drives, copying to an external, swapping back and recopying?

Hi DocBrown,

Thanks for the quick response!
The unit is a sata only device. I was referring to ide as a comparison.

This is a sata drive that was formatted in the computer, and I'm now hoping to access it from the external sata dock.

Should one usually be able to access a sata unit formatted internally from an external dock?

I was thinking it was a problem of the drive formatting, rather than an actual drive issue. I'm down to try your idea, which is a good one, but before I open the case and start unplugging drives I'm just curious if you think neither drive will be accessed this way.

If indeed one should be able to access an internal drive from an external dock, then it's probably the 80g drive's problem and I'll try what your suggesting.

Any other suggestions before I start upluging things?

Those are some great suggestions Doc!

Thanks very much.

I'll try those out and report back with progress.

DocBrown,

I ended up following your suggestion and swapping drives. The 80g is now inside, copying over to the Terabyte drive mounted in the dock with no problems.

Once complete, I'll reformat the old disc to be recognized (convert to dynamic disc) as an external.

I wasn't sure if it was a drive issue or a dock issue, and your council has helped me access my data!

100 thanks,

Mike