Zebra Drive Enclosure
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The base plate fits standard drives and has plenty of holes for them and the enclosure comes with plenty of flattened screws to install the drives. There is also a separate front plate that is removable so you can use the enclosure with optical drives or hard drives and have the front open or closed depending on your preference and current configuration.
To install an IDE optical or hard drive in the ZUSCSU drive enclosure just take the cover off with the two thumb screws and plug in the drive to the short ribbon cable that has splits to allow for some bending. Some drives have the IDE section on one side or another while some have them centered so they left the ribbon cable in the unit with slits in it and you can move the cable according to the optical drive you’re installing.
The power cable is also short but plenty long to connect to the four pin Molex type that most IDE drives have. Once the IDE and power is connected you simply screw down the drive and put the cover on. There is also a small audio connection if you want to use one for your optical CD drives.
Close up the cover and you’re done with the internal stuff, simply plug in the power cable and the USIB connection and hook up your USB or eSATA and you’re ready to go. On three different systems I had no problem whatsoever connecting and using the IDE and SATA hard drives. The Windows 98, XP and Vista systems all recognized them as external drives just like a USB drive and they were ready for use in a minute or so. I used a smaller 30 GB IDE drive and a 250 GB SATA drive and had no problems at all installing and using them on several different systems, even my media player and PS3.
I used two optical drives one a SATA and the other an IDE and was having problems with the Vista systems recognizing the SATA drives but no problems at all with the IDE drive. Installing and using the hard drives and the IDE optical drive went flawlessly in all the Windows systems, even the older Windows 98 laptop I still have.
The SATA for some reason has a bit of a problem with the optical drives and recognizing them but this is not a problem of the enclosure but Windows Vista itself. I have the same exact problem with a different enclosure and Windows Vista so I know it has something to do with the operating system and how it is still finicky.
Using the Addonics SATA-IDE Converter was just as easy as the ribbon cable as you have more room to work with using the SATA connection and plenty of room inside for the extra power cables that come with the converter. The SATA to IDE converter simply adds a small circuit board with the IDE connection on one side and the SATA connection on the other with a small floppy power connector and a jumper set.