Laptop dead - how to resurrect harddrive?

OhPinchy

My 6 year old Dell Latitude laptop has just died. Its been creaking for a while due to some rough treatment from my sister and then one day I went to turn it on and it wont boot - it wont even power on so it seems like a physical problem as opposed to an operating system issue. When I hit the on button the yellow power light flashes once and thats it - no familiar startup sounds or nothing.

There is some data on there I'd like to get at - any ideas how I can go about accessing the hard drive if I remove it?

peterk19

either put it in another laptop get an adapter to change it to pc ide or an external usb/firewire case
Pete

OhPinchy

thanks peter.

is it fairly straightforward to put it in another laptop - I assume I would have to find someone with a similar make and model? and would it boot using the OS on my harddrive?

I only need to access the drive once to copy the data off it. What is involved in getting an adapter to change it to PC IDE? Would this be done internally or externally and would I need to install drivers?

What does an external USB case involve - is it literally putting my hard drive into a case which has a usb output? Would such a case be compatible with all models?

As its only a once off I'd prefer not to have to shell out on anything so maybe if there is some company that could do this for me it might be worth checking out - does anyone know such a company?

spartacus93

OhPinchy wrote:

What is involved in getting an adapter to change it to PC IDE? Would this be done internally or externally and would I need to install drivers?

Hi, something like this will enable you to connect your 2.5" laptop hard drive to a desktop PC Internally. http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=103373&cks=PRL

OhPinchy wrote:

What does an external USB case involve - is it literally putting my hard drive into a case which has a usb output? Would such a case be compatible with all models?

Thats exactly it, something like this, slighlty more expensive but probably easier. http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122590&cks=PRL

spartacus93

OhPinchy wrote:

is it fairly straightforward to put it in another laptop - I assume I would have to find someone with a similar make and model? and would it boot using the OS on my harddrive?

It should work in any laptop. Although it could be trickier to install into others. It is usually straight forward in dells as they are located in the sides and only require the removal of one screw to access.

OhPinchy wrote:

As its only a once off I'd prefer not to have to shell out on anything so maybe if there is some company that could do this for me it might be worth checking out - does anyone know such a company?

Probably better off just doin it yourself. Dont know of any place anyways

JohnnyMobile

hi.
before you go pulling the harddrive out try below.

strip everything out except the hard drive including battery and cd/floppy drive and see if the machine will power on.

If it doesnt open the cover for the ram on the bottom and see if you have 2 ram modules.. if you do remove one and see will it boot. If it doesnt put that one in and remove the other.

There may be some piece of hardware thats stopping the machine from powering on. Batteries are notorious for this.

If its a dell latitude C series or similar grad a loan one off someone and swap your hdd into their machine boot it and copy what you need, c series latitudes are everywhere.

Or if none of the above get yourself the adapter mentioned above, nice and handy way of moving your stuff.

stevenup7002

I agree with JohnnyMobile, check your hardware first!if nothing works change the hdd with another one (don't buy a new one) and see if it works then, if so swap the lattitude hdd into another computer, see if it'll work, if it doesn't, it's damaged, and your files are gone, sorry!

dubdvd

if your in the dublin area ???i can give you a lend of a usb2 external 2 and a half inch hard drive encloser that i have , just remove the hardrive from the laptop and place it into this encloser and plug it into any pc or an other laptop and go into my computer and open the drive and from there back up all of the drive or just what you need ...its that simple ...another boards member will be borrowing it for the same reason in the next day or two so after that you can borrow it if your in dublin ...it will save you a few bob instead of going out to buy one ??

OhPinchy

thanks for that offer dubdvd - unfortunately I didnt read it before rushing out and buying this case:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122590&cks=PRL

welll at least thats what I thought I was buying - what I received is a bit different and from a different company - and doesnt seem to work.

When I hooked it up to PC there was no 'new hardware device found' and the CD that came with it only seems to have Win98 drivers (ffs!) and the manual is mostly in chinese. Eventually i got a warning saying 'a usb device blahdy blah power surge please remove device' - any ideas?

Stephen

You don't need drivers if you're using Windows 2000 or XP. That's why only 95/98 drivers are provided on the CD.
Give us the full error message.