Hard drive dock

A hard drive dock can be a very useful tool for anyone that needs to backup information or is transferring information from an old system to a new one.

The places I would look for hard drive docks are places like www.Newegg.com and www.Compusa.com Overall I find that these companies always have the most competetive prices and best selections.

Although before buying a hard drive dock here are some tips that I would suggest to make sure you get a good one.

1. Interface- you will want a SATA interface hard drive dock for sure unless you know your are going to be dealing with alot older systems but most system even the 3 or 4 year old systems run sata hard drive unless of course it was custom built and you know it is an IDE drive.

2. Compatiblity- I would look for a hard drive dock that supports both 2.5" and 3.5" drives, you of course might find one cheaper that supports only a 3.5" but I wouldnt reccomend it because you never know when you might want to back up that information from your laptop or someone elses.

3. Speed- Usb 2.0 and ESATA, I would highly recommend going with a hard drive dock that supports both speeds. Although most computer even the new ones dont come with ESATA ports you will want it later in the future when you get a new laptop or desktop that does have it. Usb 2.0 is Great but when it comes to Speed ESATA is much faster and can make a big difference when transfering large files.


Overall you can Spend anywhere from $19.99 to $300.00 I would suggest looking in the price range of the $60 to $100 range and you will get yourself a good high quality Hard drive dock.

Cdrom or Dvdrom Problems?

Have you been having problems with your Cd/Dvd drive. Here are some tips that might help you fix it without having to pay "an arm and a leg" to fix something that is most likely a easy fix that anyone that has some basic computer knowledge can do hopefully to save you time and money. These are the steps that any other technician would take to fix an issue with the cdrom if you were to hire one.

Problem: Cd drive Drive wont open or eject cd.

1.First Resart your computer, sometimes there might be a program holding it up from opening and in many cases this will fix it.

2.If that dosent work on most drives there will be a tiny hole somewhere on the front of the drive. You will just need to get a paperclip or a small pin and push it in the whole until the drive slighty pops out.(If Drive is a slot drive that will not be there)

3.If your drive dosent have one for whatever reason or it dosent eject, you would want to try and open the inside of system setup or what is called BIOS. You would need to restart your computer and either tap key on the keyboard.(refer to the list below according to your computer) Once you get into the bios you would need to try and eject it from there just by pressing the button on the cdrom.

4. If none of this works then you will need to open up the system and try reseating the drive, if there is a cd in there the drive would need to be pryed open to get it out and your looking at a replacement cdrom.

Getting into the Bios
(You must hit this key before you see the windows logo come up. I ususually recommend turning off the computer and then continue to tap the key every 2 secs until you get into it.)P.s if you come to find that something works that is not listed please just comment and I will update it.

Dell= F2
Toshiba= Esc , F1
Nec= F2
Compaq= F10
Award Bios= Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Phoenix Bios= F2

If none of these work or your computer isnt listed. Normally press del, f1, f2, f3, F10, Esc.