To connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer you have to use a Laptop IDE Hard Drive Adapter. You can easily find this adapter on the Internet for $10-$15. This adapter is very handy if you want to scan a laptop hard drive for viruses and spyware using antivirus software installed on a desktop PC, transfer data from a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer or create a ghost image from one hard drive to another. I also use this adapter if a laptop hard drive has failed and I have to recover data from it.
When you connect a laptop IDE adapter, a desktop IDE cable and a laptop hard drive to each other, make sure to connect pin 1 on the hard drive, pin 1 on the desktop IDE cable to pin 1 on the adapter. On a desktop IDE cable the side painted in red goes to pin 1.
On a laptop hard drive there are 2 groups of pins. One group has 43 pins and the other has 4 pins. The pin 1 is located on the side closer to the group of 4 pins.
After you’ve assembled everything together, connect the IDE cable to a desktop PC. Connect it to a free IDE connector on the system board. When you start the computer, you should see the laptop drive in BIOS and in Windows. You can treat this drive as a regular hard drive.
In the next post I explain how to access data using an external USB enclosure.
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February 10th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
sheila,
Nope, you have to install Windows on the hard drive when it’s connected to the laptop internally.
You’ll need to find a CD drive and run the OS installation CD.
February 8th, 2010 at 3:33 am
Hi
I will gladly donate if I can get this Dell Inspiron 910 netbook working again. I want to restore it to default factory settings but it does not contain an F11 key or a CD drive. All I get on bootup is a black screen because in error alot of system files have been removed. Your lesson about removing hard drive putting into a connector and joining it to my PC is interesting but will this do the job in that will I be able to restore the hard drive sufficiently for it to make the netbook work again?
thanks sheila.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
2.5 HDD sata connectors are Compatable with the Desktop Sata Connector ,Just Plug the desktop pc’s unused Sata Power and Data cable in to the 2.5 Sata Hdd it will work normal as Desktop Sata Hdd. no extra adapter or modifications are required in the desktop pc’s Mother Board or in the Power Supply.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
hook the laptod drive in as a secondary, if you are running xp it should pick up the drive and try to scan it at startup. The drive is probably corrupt and the damage is where the drive keeps track of the files. Windows will repair the drive if it can and immediatly afterward you should remove anything you want to keep to the computers hard drive. You cannot boot a desktop from a laptops drive, they are too disimilar. Hopes this helps you, helped me about a year ago on a drive i had given up on.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Jose,
Are you asking about Windows password? Is it Windows XP?
Start the laptop and wait until it boots to the login screen. Now press CTRL+ALT+DEL two times (if you have user icons instead of two fields).
For user name type: administrator
Leave the password filed blank.
This might work. On some laptops the admin account might be not protected.
August 24th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Hi everyone,I have a laptop computer that I purchased, the laptop was given to my son he used for a few months and created a password to sing in, now I have the laptop back, but he does not remenber the password, is there a free program that I can used to recover the password he had.
Thanks,
Jose
July 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
since when did SATA drives become an irregular hard drive? As long as the drive has an OS you can boot to it. I would just boot via the normal primary and access the other drive as a slave or secondary primary drive. Then you can view the contents.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
So… I have a HDD out of my Lenovo T60. The drive seems to have failed, but I am not posative that is what the deal is. I have tried to hook into a desktop via mainboard SATA connectors and everything seems fine. Drivers are installed, device is working properly, and XP gives it a new drive letter and recognizes it as an alternate drive in my computer. When I try to open the drive XP tells me it isnt formatted…..it was the primary in my laptop, so it is formatted and has an OS on it… any ideas???
I really need the files on this drive. Will a USB adapter do the trick, or is this drive toast and I am SOL?
thanks guys.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:53 am
No. The notebook drive is IDE and the desktop drive is SATA. I can boot to the XP CD and go through the installation, but that is not what I want to do with this drive. I just want to boot into XP from the desktop’s SATA drive and see what’s on the notebook drive.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Steve,
I assume your notebook hard drive is the SATA drive you are trying to boot from? That’s wrong.
You have to boot from a regular hard drive and if there is nothing wrong with your notebook drive it will appear in My Computer.