How can I read and transfer data form a hard drive which was in a laptop that quit working.?

Question

I'm looking for someway to x-fer data from the hard drive out of my laptop which no longer works (won't turn on) to my desktop computer.

Answer 1

Laptops usually have a CARRIER- a very thin box with a pull tab on
the outside end, and a special connector with an adapter to the
laptop standard 44 pin pins, which connects to a plastic, proprietary
plug inside the harddrive bay.

Remove the carrier/ harddrive. Take out the screws and clips etc
to remove the harddrive from inside the carrier.

You now have a bare laptop harddrive, which "normally" has two rows of pins, for a total of 44 pins. The first 40 pins are pin to pin
identical with the standared IDE/ATA 40 pins used inside an
ordinary desktop case. The extra 4 pins are used to give high
voltage 5 Volts, Ground, and to optionally control the the ON/OFF of the harddisk platter spin motor, and the entire HDD green circuitboard, ( power saving features ).

A small green circuit board adapter is avalable at most computer
repair/retailers where computers are hand-built and repaired ( not
particularly at big centers where only full, complete computers are sold ). This adapter has the standard large 40 pin IDE
connector on one side, to fit in the existing desktop 40 or 80 wire
IDE/ATA ribbon cable connector, and, a short length of Red, BLACK, BLACK, YELLOW wires, and the Molex connector on the end to get +5 Volts needed to run the laptop drive ( Fed into
the Ground and +5 V pins 43 and 44 on
the laptop drive ) The yellow wire, +12 V, is not connected to anything.
The other side of the adapter board has a connector to fit directly onto the 44 pins of the laptop HardDiskDrive.

You should read the label on the HDD, and go to the manufacturer's website to find the Master/Slave jumper settings.
Since "most" laptops only have 1 HDD, I am assuming the
jumper will be set for MASTER. (newer laptops have 2 harddrives ).

In your Desktop computer you can use a 40 pin IDE cable and plug into the SECONDARY IDE connector and install the HDD as a
MASTER, or, add it to an existing cable as a SLAVE ( which will
require you to correctly change the jumper on it to the SLAVE position.)

Then you can read and write the information you need to your desktop. There are a number of exceptions however, in that,
if the desktop is FAT16 ( win3xx, NT, etc) or FAT32 (win98xx, or
cludged ME etc. ) and the laptop was XP ( NTFS formatted), then
the desktop can't read the NTFS formatting...

In the future, you should state what the formatting of the laptop HDD was, and what the formatting of the Destop is, so that
people can give you EXACT answers, instead of guessing what
is mostly "LIKELY", which could be really bad for you... your
laptop could be running DOS, OS/2, Linus, Unix, Win3.1, ME, Win 95 A,B,or C,
2000, BEOS, XP, etc. as could your Desktop, and there are
different proceedures to transfere data. By providing more
details in your question, you will get faster, better answers that will be easier to use...

hope this helps you get your data

robin

Answer 2

Usually the hard drive can be easily removed from a laptop by taking out a screw or two and sliding out the drive. To connect it to your new laptop you will need some type of connector or adapter. I usually recommend a USB enclosure. It is a metal case that you put the hard drive into and then it attaches to your computer by a US cable, It turns the old hard drive into an external hard drive that you can continue to use even after the data transfer is done. For a laptop drive, you need a 2.5 inch enclosure. (Rather than a 3.5 inch which is for desktop drives.) You will need to check the hard drive to see if it has an IDE (2 inches wide with two rows of lots of pins) or SATA (1 inch long, flat, no pins) connector. They usually start in the $20 -$40 dollar range. Once you have transferred the data (since it sounds like you will not be repairing the laptop), you can format the drive and continue to use it as a "free" external hard drive.

Answer 3

if you know the hard drive is still good, pop it out of your lappy and put it in an external enclosure. i have a vantec nexstar 3. make sure you get a 2.5" one because thats the size for laptop hard drives.

and you can buy one with usb connection, firewire, or both. but most people just get usb. i'll also put the list of all the 2.5" external enclosures so you can see them.

they're really handy to have. its like a flash drive with a ton of extra space (depending on how big your hard drive is). make sure you plug the hard drive firmly into the enclosure so it connects right. you can plug it into any computer that has a usb port.

Answer 4

you can purchase an adapter for the laptop hard drive so you can install it in your desktop computer as a slave drive. If the drive is still OK it will work and you can move data off of it

Answer 5

i have 2 options for you
1st install the hard drive as a second hard drive in your computer
or you can get a usb enclosure like what a portable hard dirve is but without the hard drive in it. just connect yours and then bam you now have your very own portable hard drive and all your info is there for you to do what you want put it on your pc keep it on that one whatever. hope that helps

Answer 6

*IF* you mean the drive won't "spin up" ie: you can't hear it spinning, then your ONLY choice is a professional (and expensive) hard drive recovery service.


*IF* you simply mean your computer wouldn't boot up, then you need an external case which usually has a USB connector to connect it to your laptop.

Then you can simply copy files\folders between them.

Answer 7

Take it to a qualified computer service center