If for some reason your notebook fails to boot and you need to access data on the hard drive (I assume there is nothing wrong with the hard drive itself), you can use an external USB enclosure. This method is very simple and could be very useful when you need an emergency access to your data on the hard drive.
First of all you’ll have to buy an external USB enclosure for notebook hard drives. These enclosures are inexpensive and usually you can buy them in any local computer store. You also can find a wide variety of external enclosures on the Internet. Make sure to buy a correct one, enclosures for ATA and SATA hard drives are different (the connector inside the case will be different). Usually the enclosure includes the case and the USB cables.
Now remove the hard drive from the laptop. For this example I’m using an ATA hard drive.
Open up the enclosure case and connect the hard drive to the connector inside. After that insert the hard drive into the case.
After everything is assembled, you are ready to connect this device to any working computer (notebook or PC). The enclosure cable usually has two USB connectors on one end, make sure both of them are connected to the computer. You don’t need any external power supply for the enclosure because the hard drive gets power through USB ports. If the computer you are connecting the enclosure to runs Windows 2000 or higher, you will not need any device drivers. As soon as you connect the enclosure to the computer, the external hard drive should be detected and recognized automatically. After that the external hard drive will appear in My Computer and you can access it as any other hard drive in the computer.
If you are getting “Access denied” message when you are trying to access your files on the hard drive, you’ll have to take ownership of a file or folder.
My previous post explains how to connect a notebook hard drive to a desktop PC via IDE hard drive adapter.
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March 22nd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I have an old Toshiba laptop with a dead lcd display. I want to hook it up to my new Dell laptop lcd display in order to clean out all the files before I get rid of it. How can I connect the old laptop to display on my new laptop lcd?
February 28th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I recently upgrade my PS3 20GB to 120GB. I purchased a SATA USB enclosure. It worked with 120GB but no the 20GB. I put the 20GB back to PS3 and it finds it. I put it to the USB enclosure and connect to either laptop or desktop with no success. It look likes PC does not detect any usb connection. If the drive is bad, at least the PC will told me. I download Gparted Live CD and it does not detect any external HDD. I know the USB enclosure is working since I use other HDD and PC finds it. I have no clues, please help.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:37 am
Mike,
Take your laptop hard drive to a local computer store and show it to the store attendant. They will help you to find the correct enclosure.
I believe this laptop has a regular IDE laptop hard drive installed. There shouldn’t be any problem finding the correct enclosure for your hard drive.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
My laptop recently crashed and as far as I know the HD is still in usable shape, I’m trying to find the correct enclosure device for my HD, I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 but have not found an enclosure yet, I already have to return one.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Hi there.
I face the same problem too but my problem is i dont know how to “stick” my SATA notebook hdd into the external enclosure. May you show me how to “stick” it using pictures? Thanks
December 12th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
I removed my hard drive from a Dell and bought the USB enclosure and was able to use it to store my data. But sometimes when I connect to my PC it makes this weird tapping noise and the PC doesn’t connect to the external Disk. Also sometimes in the middle of doing something it gives an error that “Windows failed to write….” What could be wrong?
December 5th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Check out this adapter:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....6812119152
Its cheaper than buying a usb enclosure and much quicker to attach any IDE/SATA 2.5,3.5,5.25 drive. I wish I would have found this adapter years ago!!!!
November 26th, 2007 at 12:49 am
rahul,
Yes, you should be able to transfer files if you connect your hard drive to another PC.
You’ll have to take ownership over files located on the external hard drive. You can do that when you login to the PC as an administrator.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 laptop. Few weeks back when I started it, a dialog box opened up saying there is some problem with the registry. I have tried connecting my laptop hard drive using USB enclosure to my new Mac Book Pro, however it mentions that the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer due to unrecognizable filesystem. My question is if I connect this hard drive to Windows XP pc, will I be able to transfer the important files then? Its hard to understand that the Desktop will have access to the files which originally require administrator password to log into. I seek some advise on this. Thank you.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I’m trying to replace a hard drive on a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a larger hard drive. I’m using Norton Ghost 12.0 to do a “copy drive” with an external USB drive. The laptop recognizes the external drive and assigns it a letter and the copy procedure completes successfully, but once I’ve placed the larger drive in the laptop, it will only boot up to the “Windows is starting up” screen and then freezes. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but still can’t copy the operating system to the new drive. I think it may have something to do with the external USB drive, but I’m not sure. Anyone have any suggestions? I’ve done this exact same thing on a desktop and it was a breeze, but this laptop is a different cat.