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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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.
February 12th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Hey CJ,
Do you think the 1-chip laptop drive to desktop drive adapter I mentioned before, will work or will I have a posible power problem?
thanks, Rob
February 11th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
THE J-Man,
I think you can borrow the power cable from the CD-Rom drive. You don’t need the CD-Rom drive to transfer files from one hard drive to another. Unplug the power cable from the optical drive and use it for the hard dive adapter.
February 10th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Hi,
I have a laptop hard drive which has some important files on it, which I want to transfer over to my Desktop. It’s a pretty old Dell Dimension 4100. I have the adapter and can connect the two IDE ends up, but can’t find anywhere to plug the power cable into!
any ideas where on the computer this would be? would it be within the PSU?
Thanks,
February 6th, 2007 at 6:40 am
So is that a “Don’t worry about the 5-volt power requirement, all IDE drives use the same voltage.” or “I use one of those chips, too.”? Rob
February 5th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Rob,
My adapter doesn’t look fancy either but it works.