Broken Laptop how to get the files from the hard drive?

interstellaflyer

I have a broken laptop, is there a way I can transfer the information on the hard drive to my new laptop, BTW it's the screen that's damaged.

JasX

Yes,

First step is to work out whether the hard drive is OK or not and what type it is.

1-Take the hard disk out of the laptop and determine if the hard disk is Serial-ATA (SATA - has funny L shaped connectors) or Parallel-ATA (PATA - has lots of pins sticking out)

2-you need a way to connect it to a Desktop either directly internally (most reliable) or purchase a USB drive 'caddy' and pop it into that.

3-fire it up and see if its recognised

Don't format it if asked to do so, this will erase your.

We can probably give you some links to the kind of thing you need when you've worked out what kind of drive you have.

rdpro

assuming on your old laptop the drive has 2 screws and slides out, then do that and aquire a usb 2.5" sata caddy. Then fit your old drive into that, plug the whole lot into the new laptop's usb.

Oscar_The_Grouch

Hi there

You have several choices here, all of which will cost you a little money.

1. Take the hard drive out.
Most machines have a cover underneath that's there to hide the hard drive. If yours is one of those you can remove the hard drive really easily. Simply undo the screws and pull the drive out.
You can buy an enclosure for the drive, to turn it into a portable storage device. Here are some examples from ebay:

SATA drive: (clicky). This shows what a SATA hard disc connector looks like so you can identify it
IDE drive: (clicky). IDE drives are from older laptops. The "business end" of the hard disc is a load of little pins.

So you buy the correct enclosure for your disc and within minutes of getting it, you have a portable hard drive with all your data on it in the directory called "Users" and then "Yourname" where yourname is whatever your log in name was.

2. Connect to the TV
If you have a look on the laptop, it may have a small, round port that may or may not say "S-Video". If it does, you should be able to buy a cable that has an "S-Video" connector one end and a yellow connector the other end that connects to the yellow port on your telly (either on the back or side). Here's another ebay example (clicky). in the picture, the left hand connector is for the S-Vid port and the right hand one for the telly.

Turn your laptop on and let it complete it's usual boot up sequence (go off and make a coffee or something). Connect the cable and then look for a button that has a picture of a rectange with rounded corners, a verticle line and then a filled in rectangle. You'll also have a button marked "Fn" or something similar. Press the "Fn" button and whilst holding it down, press the other one. This should transfer the computer image from your duff screen onto the telly. You'll need to switch to the correct TV "AV" channel, but I can't tell you how to do that on your telly - I don't know what telly you have!!

3. Get a monitor
If you don't have the S-Video port, you should have a port that's larger at the top than it is at the bottom. It will have lots of little holes in 3 rows. It's only about 2cm wide at the top. This is for you to plug a normal computer monitor into. Simply plug in the monitor, turn it on and then boot up your laptop. You'll again need to get a coffee and come back before pressing the "Fn" and thingy button above.

Hope this helps!!

Browntoa

it its only the screen that laptops normally have a standard VGA connector that enables you to connect it to a normal screen , boot it up with the screen connected and you normally hit he FN key and the F5 or F4 key and it will display, looks like these symbols



you can then transfer over your wireless ( on wired) network withut taking it to bits

edit...Oscar just beat me to it

interstellaflyer

Thanks to everyone, broken Laptop is and Advent bought new December 08, the new machine ia an ASUS bought March 09. The broken machine did work for a while using an external monitor, it sudernly stopped.

Oscar_The_Grouch

interstellaflyer wrote: »

Thanks to everyone, broken Laptop is and Advent bought new December 08, the new machine ia an ASUS bought March 09. The broken machine did work for a while using an external monitor, it sudernly stopped.

It looks like your best bet is my "option 1" above.