Accessing Notebook Hard Drive

[Point44]

The bloody power supply on my notebook broke off and i didn't get to back up the stuff on my PC. What would you guys suggest on accessing the files on my notebook hard drive. I've sent the notebook in for repairs but it's taking longer than expected and i've asked the dude to return the hard drive to me so i can figure out a way to access it.

I've tried going to PC World and asked them if i buy an external hard drive from them how much would it cost to transfer the files. £19.99!...How long? 2-3 weeks. That's a lot of help.

So any suggestions? I was thinking of a hard drive enclosure but in case the stores don't have 'em what else can i do? I've got some stuff i really need to get to in the hard drive and i'm just too lazy to rewrite some of the stuff.

 

[Temper]

OK first question is it on XP or 2000?

If yes, then forget putting it into another PC, it wont let you.

If its not XP then it shouldnt be a problem, but I'm not going to write a lengthy reply if its on XP or 2000

 

[faramir]

Temper, where did you get that idea ? You mean because of "activation" and booting ? He only wants to access files (documents) if i understand it correctly. Anyway, 2.5" IDE cables (converters) should be considerably cheaper than 20 UKP. Get one of those and plug your HD into your desktop computer. If your notebook HD uses NTFS you'll need an OS capable of recognizing that filesystem in your desktop too.

External drive enclosure would be another way to do it but it would be more expensive (because of the enclosure, IDE-USB conversion and additional power supply).

 

[AlphalphaPB]

A smaller (non-megacorp) computer store would probably have the gear for reading data off notebook hard drives. They'd probably do the transfer on the spot for a nominal fee if you buy a drive from them.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, Faramir's way would probably be the cheapest.

This shouldn't really matter in Point44's case, but just as a reply to Temper's comment:

I think I've had a successful hard drive transplant with WinXP before, with a bit of rescue-disk work to get the bootloader to boot the right partitions. Ah, now I remember. My transplanted drive was drive 2, and I modified the bootloader of drive 1 (the original drive in the host computer) to boot the boot partition on drive 2. New hardware drivers had to be installed.

 

[Temper]

FAramir becasue of NT Security. If the disk has the OS on it it wont let you access the info. Its a security feature to stop industrial espionage or info theft. IIRC you will get a blue screen of death if you put a NT based hard drive in a PC that it was not installed on. NT has a very high security rating from the NSA. Of course if its a home system with no real security like a log on you may get access to some files but you would not be able to boot it up.

Its not just drivers it (The OS) has the MAC address of hardware on the original machine. If they dont match, as would be the case of taking out a H/D and putting it in a new machine, all you would get is a Blue Screen and a message saying you have a hardware issue.

http://www.duxcw.com/dcforum/DCForumID7/127.html This explains it a bit better than I did.

 

[Ken C.]

When you say the power supply broke off do you mean that the receptacle broke and rely only on battery power? Can you turn the machine on at all? Do you have a spare battery?

 

[Point44]

Yes Ken...the jack where i need to plug in the power supply broke and i don't have a spare battery. I've never really used it outside so it's always been using the power supply and the batteries are now at a stage where it barely can last 30 minutes. However, when the thing broke i didn't realise it until it's too late and i didn't get time to transfer the files 'cos the batteries were spent.

Anyway, i did as one of you suggested. Went to Maplin to get one of those converter cables 2.5" to 3.5". Popped it into my CD rom ide slot and it appeared on my PC as another drive. Quickly transferred all the files on to my back up drive and everything was alright.

So, thanks a lot everyone. Final cost £4.99 instead of the £19.99 for data transfer or £29.99 for a hard drive enclosure.

I had a meeting with my university group mates today where we were all supposed to compile all the data and mine happened to be on the bloody notebook. I never realised the importance of backing up until now. Usually i transfer a copy of all important files to my PC but lately i've not done it. Now i'm gonna do it everytime i put anything new on any of the computers.