Laptop HD question

[ulakye]

My 2 year old laptop has died and without boring you with the details looks as though it will be easier to buy a replacement rather than have it repaired.

My question is whether I can take the hard drive out of the old laptop and put it directly into the new one and expect everything to work correctly.

Alternatively if the above isn't possible what other options do I have for extracting the data from the hard drive.

Incidently I do know that there isn't a problem with the hard drive in the old computer.

[ATG]

Unless your new laptop can take two hard discs, you probably won't be able to plug it in directly. Best bet would be to try to plug it into a desktop machine. Laptop hard discs are bog standard IDE/ATA discs, so they should be compatible with the IDE/ATA disc controller in a desktop PC. Only issue will be the connector ... the laptop discs use a different shaped connector from that used in desktop PCs. Get an adapter cable, check the master/slave config is appropriate nd you should be in business.

[Mikey G]

You can buy adapters to control a laptop hard drive www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=33521

you can also buy a caddy to fit a laptop hard drive into to use as an external drive www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=74825

As these items are universal i would say that your old hard drive should fit straight into a new machine no problem but you will probably find your new machine will have a bigger hard drive as a natural progresion so why reduce the size of it? if you can buy one of those caddies above and use them to transfer all your old stuff onto your new machine and then use the portable device as a back up or as extra space.