[TheCloudOfSmoke]

Ok, so I got my new laptop last night and I was hoping that I could swap hard drives and put my old hard drive on my new laptop so I could back everything up on a DVD. I know the information on the old laptop hardrive is good but the laptop itself shuts off no more than 10 seconds after powering it on at the most so there is no way that I could retrieve the information from that laptop itself. The problem is that when I put the old hard drive into the new laptop and powered it on, the HP logo showed for a few seconds and then I saw a black screen with a flashing underscore and nothing else happens. I figured that something like that would happen but I was hoping that it wouldn't. The old HD had Windows XP installed on it using an installation CD that was made for Dell computers and the new one has XP instatalled using a HP/Compaq XP installation disk. I'm assuming that the old HD with the Windows XP for Dell computers is conflicting with the new laptop since the new laptop is a HP.

So since I can't do it that way, I was considering another way. I've don'e this in the past with a desktop computer but hard drive that I was trying to retrieve information from was set as the secondary drive so I was able to boot from the the master hard drive and access the secondary hard drive from my computer with no problem. The problem with laptops is that it only has one slot for a HD so I can only put in one hard drive at a time. So my question is, is there any device that would let me use my laptop HD in my desktop PC so that I could retrieve my information that way? Or is there something that would allow me to connect the secondary HD to my new laptop via USB? Or any other suggestions that any of you may have would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Upon Googling, I found this:
2.5" Laptop IDE Hard Drive Adapter

Is this what I need? Do they sell these in retail stores like Best Buy or Circuit City?

This is where I found out about it:

laptop hard drive problem

 

[Balthazard]

Get yourself this one -pic- and put your old HDD in that case and connect it via usb to your new notebook.

 

[TheCloudOfSmoke]

Thanks for the help Balthazard. How much is something like that in USD? I looked at the page and I think that's around $18.50. Not bad, I might need to get one of those soon because I always seem to have some type of problems with my laptop at some point and time.

Well I found this thing for pretty damn cheap which is good because hopefully I'll only need it for one time only. It's always good to have around anyways. I'll get this one for now but I'll try to also find one of those USB HDD adapters.

 

[kinzuagolfer]

I would personally go for a external enclosure. You could then just use it for back ups every once in a while.

 

[Balthazard]

Thanks for the help Balthazard. How much is something like that in USD? I looked at the page and I think that's around $18.50. Not bad, I might need to get one of those soon because I always seem to have some type of problems with my laptop at some point and time.

Well I found this thing for pretty damn cheap which is good because hopefully I'll only need it for one time only. It's always good to have around anyways. I'll get this one for now but I'll try to also find one of those USB HDD adapters.

Glad to be of help

As for the price here is a simelar one on newege Page
and here is a whole page. Just pick the one you like.

 

[TheCloudOfSmoke]

Thanks again. Those are pretty damn cheap.

 

[ElijahTW]

I have this thing: Newegg.com - VANTEC CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter - Retail

It's not an enclosure, but to use once it'd be fine.

It has Sata, IDE, and the 2.5 slot, so it could be useful on many occasions.

EDIT: I didn't realize how old this thread was.. whoops

 

[TheCloudOfSmoke]

I got the adapter that I found online like a week or two ago and I was able to salvage all of my stuffs. They accidentally sent me two of them. It better not come up in the bill because I only ordered one of them.

 

[richardhensen]

My laptop can fit two 2.5" hard drives in it. So I decided to buy an extra 320 GB hard drive only to find out something. The hard drive system in my laptop doesn't use a power connector like the drive has on it, it gets it's power near where the data part is and is not a pin power connector