How to connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer
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.
Entry Filed under: Laptop Tips and Tricks
84 Responses to “How to connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer”
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Pages: « 9 8 7 6 [5] 4 3 2 1 » Show All
April 11th, 2007 at 8:23 am
It actually uses just one usb for the power source and there are no other power options for either the drive, or Device.
It shows up under computer managent,but only under device driver. Under Storage Devices, etc, I dont see any sort of way to access the drive even though it is consistently spinning.
The strange thing is the other drives i was able to access last week wont even boot up now. Very weird.
I guess this is what my last question is. Even if the drive is corrupt, there HAS to be a way within reason to copy it somewhere. would it be a hardware device? Software program ilke Partitian Magic? there is only about 12 gigs of info on the drive.
I am just trying to figure this out. Thanks again for your help.
April 7th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hey Jack,
I’m not sure why this drive will not appear in My Computer.
If the Fujitsu drive has any jumpers, remove them and try again. Make sure the drive is getting enough power. I don’t know witch model of the external enclosure you got, but if it has two USB cables on one end, make sure both of them are connected to the laptop. Sometimes the power you are getting from one USB port is not enough to start the hard drive.
Try connecting the same Fujitsu drive to another working computer, it might be some kind of compatibility issue between the enclosure, hard drive and computer.
Take a look at the Fujitsu drive in the disk management (computer management in the administrative tools). Does the drive has valid file system? Maybe the file system is corrupted and that’s why the drive is invisible in My Computer?
April 5th, 2007 at 11:06 am
I read the previous posts and “julie” seemed to have a similar problem with the drive showing up in the device manager, but not under her “my computer” icon.
She never came back to explain what happened or if she fixed it. Considering 2 out of 3 hard drives worked fine……..and the 3rd hard drive is at least spinning and recognized in the device manager, is there another way to access the files on it?
Any advice greatly appreciated.
April 4th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
thanks for the advice. I went and go tthe device and was able to get into two out of 3. Unfortunately the one i couldnt get into, is the one that I bought the device for.
It is clearly recognized as a “fugitsu” mass storage device on my task bar, and as an extra drive in my device manager. For some reason, it doesnt show up as an extra drive under the mycomputer icon.
It is definately turned on, and sounds just like the rest that were able to boot up and be accessed without a hitch. Any advice on alternate routes on how to get into this thing, or get my computer to recognize it more? It seems like its recognized………but only as a ghost.
I would even copy and paste the whole thing if i could just find a way to interact with it outside of the device manager.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Jack,
It shouldn’t be a problem either. You can use an external notebook hard drive USB enclosure, you can find it online or in a local computer store for $20-30.
Install your hard drive into the external enclosure and connect it to any working laptop (or desktop) via USB port (the USB cable should be included with the enclosure). If there is nothing wrong with the hard drive and the laptop is running Windows 2000 or higher, the external hard drive should be detected automatically. You can access it through My Computer and transfer all needed files.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
What about using a laptop or notebook to access the Laptop hard drive?
I have 3 hard drives from previous laptops I have owned that I kept in a ziplock that I want to access. The problem is, I only have a laptop to do it with. Is there any other sort of device I could find/use to plug these hard drives into and copy and paste what data I want to save?
Any help would be much appreciated my friends.
February 25th, 2007 at 1:50 am
Pat,
Probably you’ll have to take ownership of a folder you are trying to access. You’ll find more information here, it’ll help you to take ownership of a folder in Windows XP.
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:38 pm
nobody answered the other persons question on how to get access to the hard drive files if the previous laptop it was installed on had a password at the windows login. Please help. tybye
February 19th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Thanks - I’m getting one and I’ll let you know how it works for me.
February 18th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Rob,
I don’t know. I’m not a person who engineering these adapters. If you do not trust these adapter, buy an external USB enclosure instead. You can install the hard drive inside this enclosure and connect to any other working computer via an USB post. No drivers needed, the hard drive should be recognized by the operating system.