trapped pics

smudger1946

Dear All,

My old laptop has passed away, it had been playing up for some time, the power connector was iffy.
I thought I should file all pics to a disc, as I was going into the process the laptop gave up completely, I thought it was the power pack but I tried another one that I know works, still no go, it must be a problem in the on board power socket, not worth getting fixed as the laptop is old.

I do need the pics off of the laptop, my question is, if I took old laptop to curry's or another techie is there any way that pics could be taken off of the hard drive or wherever pics live in the laptop I could install pics on to new laptop?

Regards Smudge

Lifeforms

Don't do it, they/'ll either charge some stupid amount, or you'll end up walking away with another laptop!

Find out what HDD is in the dead laptop. Buy a caddy. Plug it in as an external HDD, then see what you can get off it that way.
This is basically all they'd do at a premium cost.

So to find out what type your HDD is, either google the components, or post your dead laptops make/model on here and someone will find it out for you, and may even find an appropriate caddy.

Caddies cost a few quid. This is easily some thing you can do yourself, with a bit of care with the old HDD.

The bonus of this is, if the HDD is not the problem (and sounds unlikely due to power problems prior) then you get a free (!) external HDD to use for backing up afterwards.

marcowil

No need to take it to Currys or anywhere else - with a little patience and a small outlay you can do this yourelf

The hard drive of the laptop is removable (replaceable) - as Lifeforms said, you will need to establish if your hard drive is SATA or IDE - your manual should tell you this or post the make and model and someone will be able to help

You will need to purchase a USB hard drive docking station (like this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freecom-31994-Hard-Drive-Dock/dp/B002611YO2/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt) or external HDD caddy

You remove the hard drive from the laptop (your manual should tell you how to do this, or google it), plug it into the docking station and you should be able to see all the files on the drive from the new laptop

googler

smudger1946 wrote: »

I do need the pics off of the laptop, my question is, if I took old laptop to curry's or another techie is there any way that pics could be taken off of the hard drive or wherever pics live in the laptop I could install pics on to new laptop?

Take control of the process and do this yourself. It'll be cheaper, and you'll know it's been done right.

There are guides all over the web and on YouTube about removing hard drives from laptops. Google the make and model of yours with 'remove hard drive' or 'replace hard drive' to find if there's any specific to your machine.

Remove the hard drive.

Buy a USB caddy matching the type of drive you have (IDE or SATA). Put the drive in this caddy and connect it to a USB port on your new machine.

COPY the photos from the USB caddy to your new machine, leaving them on the drive in the caddy as your backup.

As you load new photos to the new machine, hook up the caddy and drive, and copy them to the caddy.

If any of this is unclear, ASK and learn, rather than relying on Curry or PC World.

It's not rocket science.

Once you're confident with moving the files around, you can create a new folder structure on the backup drive, and delete the operating system files as you do this, as they won't be needed anymore. Again, if in doubt, ASK.

Linbox

For a SATA drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_4?url=search-alias%3Dcomputers&field-keywords=2.5+sata+enclosure&sprefix=2.5+%2Ccomputers%2C233


For a IDE hard drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_17?url=search-alias%3Dcomputers&field-keywords=2.5+ide+enclosure&sprefix=2.5+ide+enclosure%2Ccomputers%2C157&rh=n%3A340831031%2Ck%3A2.5+ide+enclosure

Lifeforms

The only thing I'd say differently is get the stuff off first, then reformat the drive, as there will be a load of guff on the HDD that you simply don't need, and will take up useful space.

So once you've copied over the data/pictures you want to keep, reformat the now spare HDD, then copy stuff back on to a fresh empty HDD.

googler

Lifeforms wrote: »

The only thing I'd say differently is get the stuff off first, then reformat the drive, as there will be a load of guff on the HDD that you simply don't need, and will take up useful space.

That'll blooter the only backup that the OP has.

Better surely, to reorganise the folders, determine what to keep and delete everything else?

Lifeforms

googler wrote: »

That'll blooter the only backup that the OP has.

Better surely, to reorganise the folders, determine what to keep and delete everything else?

The sheer time it would take to clean a HDD that has previously been used as the main disc would be daft compared to a quick format. It would have OS on it, as well as program files, personal information, and various settings that just is daft to wipe off on an individual basis. As I said, copy the files over to new laptop, format the old one, copy back. Could easily be done in under a couple of hours, and the chances of the new laptop corrupting itself in that time is insignificant.

Currently the OP has no files and no back up anyway. The next thing would be the inevitable thread of what do I keep or remove, with a vast list of junk listed.

Just take what you need onto the new one, format the old hdd, start from scratch again, and maintain the backups. Besides which one back up is never enough anyway.

johnmc

As others have said, do it yourself.

I bought a caddy off Ebay for a couple of quid and it works with IDE as well as SATA. Plugs into IDE and resued my data from a "dead" laptop.

googler

Lifeforms wrote: »

The sheer time it would take to clean a HDD that has previously been used as the main disc would be daft compared to a quick format. It would have OS on it, as well as program files, personal information, and various settings that just is daft to wipe off on an individual basis. As I said, copy the files over to new laptop, format the old one, copy back. Could easily be done in under a couple of hours, and the chances of the new laptop corrupting itself in that time is insignificant.

The only time-consuming bit is moving the files the OP wants to keep.

Whatever the folder structure is, all the OP need do is create one folder at root level, and copy or move everything they want to keep there. Then select all the other folders and press delete. And clear the recycle bin.

smudger1946

Many thanks to you all for all of your valuable advice.
Will give it ago soon, if I trip up I know who to call!!!!!
Regards Smudge