hard drive repair possibilities

[teradost]

I am starting out my computer service business in the part time, and have had some calls come my way. I have been able to solve them all, except for the ones which relate to hard drive failures.

So, now I am looking to invest some money into some hardware-software that I can use to recover data from these hard drives for my clients. I can recover data from PATA drives by setting them as slaves in my system, but I cannot do anything about other types of drives.

So now I am looking at different enclosures and adapters which allow you to connect SATA drives to USB 2.0 and such, and have only been able to find enclosures for 3.5" drives.

My questions:
(1) are 2.5" SATA drives popular, or are they something you encounter once in a blue moon
(2) is there an adapter or enclosure which will allow me to switch back and forth from 3.5" and 2.5" SATA drives, or does one HAVE to buy two different enclosures
(3) what is the best way to go about setting up SCSI drives for repair --- with PCI adapters or enclosures or something else
(4) what different SCSI types are out there, and is there some type of hardware which supports them all

any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks

[zelkea]

Hello Teradost,
SATA is the newest technology unless something newer/faster comes out you will see more and more SATA drives. (This is not counting SCSI)
As far as enclosures I would recommend something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812104061 It will save you the hassle of screwing the HDD into a chassis (they also have a similar item for IDE).
SCSI is going to get a little tricky and expensive for you. In order to read a SCSI disk you will need the appropriate SCSI controller the most common now are Ultra Wide, Ultra160, and Ultra320 cards run anywhere from $50-$350. (I have found most home users and small biz do not run SCSI)
I believe I answered this question with #3 let me know if you have any others