Customer Reviews

StarTech.com ATA-133/IDE to USB Adapter ICUSB2IDE

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This worked on one of my three computers, but documentation was incomplete and inaccurate before and after purchase. Not mentioned in the supplied instructions (or mentioned on Amazon) is the fact that you'll need access to a live 5V "SP4" floppy power connection for it, in addition to the 12V "LP4" drive power your IDE drive needs. I wasted many hours over most of last weekend trying to figure this out, even with telephone help from their tech support. Even so, the product failed to install on one Win2K box and one WinXP box, but finally worked on another WinXP system and wound up doing the job I needed.

If you're buying this bridge to access an IDE drive EXTERNALLY (I've never heard of an internal USB connector), you probably don't want to open the PC case, in which case you'll need some external 5V and 12V power source. Startech makes one (icusb2idepw for $23), but for about the same price you could buy a second bridge -- the Sabrent USB-DSC5 bridge for $20 -- plus a Belkin F2N503 splitter cable for $7 and have everything you need for both IDE and SATA drives without having to open the PC. This solution gives you two bridges for different applications, plus power for both. Note that the Sabrent didn't work with my ATA/133 drive, which is why I also bought the Startech bridge.