accessing a hard drive from another computer...

[Guest]

I have a laptop with windows XP on it and windows failed to load on me one
day...so now I have a new laptop because we couldn't figure out what was
wrong with it. There was no indication that the hard drive was damaged, so I
was told I could access the hard drive on my old laptop by using a 2 way USB
cord and plug it into another, working computer. It would then act just like
an external hard drive. Only when I did this, nothing happened. I thought
maybe the old laptop had to be turned on for it to work, but when I tried the
same thing with my home computer, which was on, it didn't work either. Does
anybody know what's wrong or how else to access the hard drive from my old
laptop?
thanks.
-Camille

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Hello,

You cannot access the hard drive of a broken computer like that.

You will need to take the hard drive out of the broken computer and add it
as a second hard drive to your working laptop (if it supports having more
than one hard drive).

Or, you can buy a disk enclosure and put the old hard drive inside of it,
then connect the disk enclosure to a working computer via a USB cable and
then access it in the manner that you described.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_enclosure
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=usb+2.5+external+disk+enclosure

 

[David J. Craig]

What has this to do with Vista? I have a bridge in Brooklyn and some
beautiful waterfront property in Florida for sale. I guess you believe
anyone who comes up with absurd 'fix'. Take the old computer to a computer
store - not one of the 'Big Box' stores such as Best Buy. Ask them how much
and to tell you if they need to send it to a data recovery company as that
will cost several hundred dollars.

 

[Guest]

thanks.