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 29th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I tried to configure the system to boot to my SATA drive so I could look at the contents of the notebook HDD. It just gets stuck in a loop with the F8 screen asking how I want to boot, I chose, it restarts and goes back to the F8 screen. Any suggestions?
March 5th, 2009 at 7:29 am
i’m trying to take files from my old laptop hard drives and download them on my new laptop what cord do i need. Please help
February 17th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I have a hitachi travelstar and although my PII motherboard recognizes the drive, it will not boot to it.
I know the hard drive works because I tested it on a newer motherboard & it booted to the O.S. no problem.
Any ideas on what to do / try?
December 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Also have a Hitachi Travelstar with a strange pin config. It seems to have 44 pins, but is not the typical two row male pin config. This is not a SATA, it is definitely an ATA/IDE, but pins are more like female. Model # is HTS541080G9AT00. Can someone suggest an adapter?
Thanks.
December 26th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I have an acer aspirer 3680 with 80gb HD running xp, and I have a desktop running windows 98. I was just wondering if it was possible for me to do this, and if so do I just plug the cord into the motherboard? Thank you.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:21 am
if i do this, does it void the warranty? my hp laptop doesn’t start up, so i need to send it in. they sent me a box already, but they also told me i should go to an electronics store or something to have them connect my hard drive to another llaptop for data. i don’t want to pay like 100 dollars an hour if i can do the same thing myself. do ya catch my drift? so all i really need to know is whether it voids my warranty or not.
please reply asap
thanks a bunch.
November 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Hi,
I’ve tried to connect my TOSHIBA laptop hard drive (SATA) to Deskop comp (IDE) using an adaptor. Both (laptop and Desktop) have got Windows XP.
When I connect the laptop HD – my Desktop does not see it. I go to “My Computer” and there is a list of all the Desktop drives only, but no laptop…
What am I doing wrong? Do I have to change any BIOS settings?
Also, if I connect my laptop HD to Desktop and restart my Desktop – it will display message “No Operation System detected” or something like that…
Please help! THANK YOU
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Ter,
I’m not sure what you are talking about. Does your desktop have no power supply?
November 1st, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I have a notebook HD adaptor for desktop but it doesn’t have any power supply. What pins are for power so I can add in the power?
September 27th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Zach,
SATA drives and IDE drives have different connectors.
Most likely you cannot do that. If your laptop came with Windows 98, it’s an old laptop and requires an IDE drive. You cannot replace your old IDE drive with a newer SATA drive.