A:Answer In order to put a drive into this dock, it will need to be removed from any external cases. Also, it is not a duplicator, simply a different type of external hard drive enclosure with space for 2 drives. As far as being able to access data from your hard drive, maybe. There are at several reasons a computer might recognize a drive but not allow you to access the data.
1) It could be a formatting issue. If the old drive was from an Apple computer and you are now using a Windows computer, Windows won't be able to read the data because it doesn't recognize the file formatting system. If this is the case, you could use an apple to access the data and transfer it to a hard drive formatted as a FAT partion (which Windows will read).
2) it could be that your computer isn't able to supply enough power to the current drive to power it up over USB. If your external enclosure has its own external power supply, than this shouldn't be an issue. But if it doesn't, this product will allow the drive to power up since it has its own power source.
3) The drive might be failing. If this is the case, there are services available where you can send the drive away and have them recover the data for you.
4) (and probably least likely) if the computer you are now using is an older model, then the operating system may not be able to recognize the size of the drive you're using. I haven't seen this issue in about 8 years, but it's is possible. If this is the case, you might be able to use free recovery software to pull the data off the drive, you wouldn't need this product to do that though.
There are probably other possible issues, but hopefully this helps.
