laptop question

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 2:19 pm

Have a laptop that goes to a white screen.

Tried to hook up external monitor - No go.

Would like to get files off the hard drive (like yesterday)

I would guess that I would not be able to take the hard drive out the bad display laptop and put it in a working laptop (two totally different brand laptops).

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 2:43 pm

We take out the hard drive and we have various docks and bridges we can plug the drive into, and then read it from another computer.
One way a home user can inexpensively do this is to purchase a little SATA to USB bridge adapter
https://www.google.com/search?q=sata+to ... e&ie=UTF-8

I'd remove the HDD from the dead laptop first, to confirm it's a standard SATA connector on the hard drive itself before spending the money on a little adapter cable. Some laptops, especially newer ones, are coming with various smaller bridges like M2.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 2:45 pm

For example since we use a ton of Crucial drives, we have quite a few clone kits that come with these cables..

The attachment sata-to-usb-cable.png is no longer available

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 3:11 pm

YOSC,

Specs on the hard drive.

Serial ATA
WD1600B EVT-60z

I'm guessing something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Portable-A ... B005B3VO24

or this

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-USB ... 6CZF7S1QDX

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 3:20 pm

Ack..a WD "Blue"...high failure rate on the Blues. Plus only 5,400rpm. slow.

Yup that's just a standard 2.5" SATA. So "yuppers"...those should work.

The first one has a power adapter, so it can also spin up the regular desktop drive size..the 3.5" drives. As well as 2.5 and SSD.
The non-power boosted ones, like your second link, they just pull parasitic power via the USB, so they only power smaller 2.5" and SSD. They usually can't spin up most of the larger 3.5" drives that need more juice.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 3:50 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Ack..a WD "Blue"...high failure rate on the Blues. Plus only 5,400rpm. slow.

Yup that's just a standard 2.5" SATA. So "yuppers"...those should work.

The first one has a power adapter, so it can also spin up the regular desktop drive size..the 3.5" drives. As well as 2.5 and SSD.
The non-power boosted ones, like your second link, they just pull parasitic power via the USB, so they only power smaller 2.5" and SSD. They usually can't spin up most of the larger 3.5" drives that need more juice.

In the long run, might be better off with the first one, since it powers desktop drives. You never know.....

Thanks for your help and clarification on all this.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 3:52 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Ack..a WD "Blue"...high failure rate on the Blues. Plus only 5,400rpm. slow.

Yup that's just a standard 2.5" SATA. So "yuppers"...those should work.

The first one has a power adapter, so it can also spin up the regular desktop drive size..the 3.5" drives. As well as 2.5 and SSD.
The non-power boosted ones, like your second link, they just pull parasitic power via the USB, so they only power smaller 2.5" and SSD. They usually can't spin up most of the larger 3.5" drives that need more juice.

I don't think and I could be wrong that I don't have any USB 3.0 ports, but that stuff is backwards compatible, right?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 4:09 pm

Yup....it'll work...backwards compat!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:43 pm

The IDE/SATA adapters are handy. Make sure to look at the directions, some of them require a decent amount of time to make the drive ready for use. I have a vantec one that takes a good 45 secs to a minute before windows will see anything from it.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Sat Apr 07, 2018 9:04 am

Thanks guys. Everything worked out fine. Windows immediately saw the drive, and I was able to transfer everything I need. Fortunately, I had the files situated in folders and didn't need to go hunting around.

Post by **Philip** » Sat Apr 07, 2018 10:20 am

Just threw away (*er, recycled) an old WD Blue 2.5" drive a couple of days ago, it was a pull from some laptop repair that was readable about 90% of the time, and would just hang at other times. I see no reason to keep spinners in laptops anymore.

nightowl · Post by **nightowl** » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:35 pm

Philip wrote:Just threw away (*er, recycled) an old WD Blue 2.5" drive a couple of days ago, it was a pull from some laptop repair that was readable about 90% of the time, and would just hang at other times. I see no reason to keep spinners in laptops anymore.

unless you need the storage. The hybrids are pretty good for that. I put one in my AMD toshiba satailte laptop with 12 gigs of ram and its been going strong (knock on wood) for the last 5 years.