and a friend wants it, can I get a plug so I can access it and remove personal stuff?

IDE to USB?? Is that right?

Or any other suggestions.

Thanks,
T


The laptop was run over, (destoyed) BTW.
And it won't fit the bay on the new comp.

or should I take it off the cradle and stick it in?

Just open up your computer and get it close and cable it in your system and copy off what you want and then format it. You might need a notebook hard drive adapter (2.5" to 3.5" ide adapter) to connect it to your computer if your system does not use notebook hard drives.

Here you go. 15 bucks, that's nothing.

Yes you can.

CompUSA has the necessary cables, costs about $40

I bought one on ebay for $12

Just make sure you get one for a laptop HD and not a desktop HD,  easy mistake to make

Quoted: and a friend wants it, can I get a plug so I can access it and remove personal stuff? IDE to USB?? Is that right? Or any other suggestions. Thanks, T The laptop was run over, (destoyed) BTW. And it won't fit the bay on the new comp. or should I take it off the cradle and stick it in?

I had an old hard drive that I had replaced in my laptop (upgraded from 3 to 12 gigs).  I bought a USB 2.0 external hard drive case for $9.99 from TigerDirect, plugged in the drive, formatted it, and now I have a 3.2 gig portable drive that's not much bigger than a checkbook, and is powered from the USB port.

Interestingly, it's /exactly/ the enclosure Janus linked to.

BTW, if you're concerned about personal info on the drive, run a utility that will do drive over-writing and really clean it off good.  Even a regular format will still leave information on the drive that could be recovered and pieced together.

Jim

Quoted: Here you go. 15 bucks, that's nothing.

+100 That is the way to go.

Quoted: Yes you can. CompUSA has the necessary cables, costs about $40 I bought one on ebay for $12 Just make sure you get one for a laptop HD and not a desktop HD,  easy mistake to make

CompUSA is the BIGGEST ripoff for cables. NEVER EVER EVER EVER buy cables at CompUSA, pretty much all of the local mom and pops smaller business computer stores will smoke them on price of any of those cables.

To throw in a word of advice do a zero fill (or at least use a specially made deleter for specific files (15 day trial on that one)) on the hard drive, otherwise the data can still be read after it is deleted (all deleting does is delete the pointer to the file, it leaves all the data there where any special purpose program will be able to recover it easily).

You should be able to get a little "3.5 to 2.5" connector at any decent large computer shop.  It has a four-wire power connector sticking out of the side, and the appropriate internal connections to convert between the two plug sizes.  Cost here in Taiwan is about the equivalent of US$1.50, so you should be able to get it for less than that in the U.S.  (Prices here are usually 20% higher, but on something that cheap the store is probably going to bump the price up just because.)

Get yourself Cyberscrub to clear all data once you have acces to the HDD.

cyberscrub.com

I have a free copy here I had free with a magazine. If you want me to email you a copy (56k warn) just drop me an IM

Taffy


Link for adaptor

You can't hook a laptop drive up directly to a desktop PC, the pins are different. You would need an adaptor for that.
And laptop drives have a special hazard:
You must be careful to properly orient the laptop drive to its connection, if you use an external enclosure or a direct 3.5" to 2.5" adaptor. Laptop connector pins don't have any safety guide (such as pins missing, or notches for the connector) to indicate how the connectors are oriented; it's just got two rows of pins, and two of those pins are the power connections--there isn't a separate connection for power cables. It is possible to attach the cable upside down. If you do that and power it up, you fry both the drive and the computer's mobo. If you get an external enclosure this shouldn't be a problem--but it is easy to do wrong if you buy a laptop-to-desktop drive adaptor.
.....
To wipe the drive, there are a bunch of programs you can use. I like Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
----
Also note: laptop drives tend to run slow compared to desktop hard-drives.  
-------
Also I would agree: retail walk-in stores tend to overcharge drastically for this kind of stuff. Order it offline if you can, you'll get a better selection and pay a much lower price. Many items like cables for example cost 2-3+ times as much in local retailers as they do online.
~