HDD clone

ColColt said:

I got antsy waiting for the data cable to get here so I went to Best Buy thinking they'd have one. Then Staples, Radio Shack and a local electronics store. No one had a 7-pin SATA III data cable...

I find it hard to believe none of those places didn't have SATA cables you could use. More likely, they didn't have any sales help that knew their products very well. Any SATA or Serial ATA cable of the correct length (i.e. long enough) will work just fine with SATA III, even those not marked specifically for SATA III. SATA II cables will work at SATA III speeds. Besides, HDDs haven't saturated SATA II speeds yet so, even if cables not marked for SATA III speeds were slower (which they aren't), it wouldn't matter.

ColColt said:

Radio Shack had one but the connectors had metal clips on the ends. Well, in a couple more days I'll get one from NewEgg.

The metal clips wouldn't have been a problem. Even if they had been, they pop right off.

ColColt said:

I had a My Book once with an older XP machine and it slowed the computer down worse than Norton Internet Security. I sold it.

Well; that sounds like it was a much older version. I am sure they have improved on that. I havent had any issues with mine; and I still think that may be the way to go for you. Especially considering that you said that the system you were running it on was a xp machine. And imo xp was slow compared to vista and 7.

ColColt said:

I didn't know that. I thought they were embossed in the rubber. When CompUSA was still here and even Circuit City I never went there and came out empty handed. They most always had what I was looking for. I hated to see them fold.

They folded due to high prices (a common cause of brick and mortar stores going under; internet retailers undercut their prices) and less than stellar customer service. I rarely buy computer parts locally, partially due to higher prices and, mostly, because they rarely had what I wanted or were out of stock (my local Fry's Electronics is notorious for all three).