Computer nerds assemble!!

skyhighZJ

skyhighZJ

Gov retirement < needs to live
Joined
May 31, 2012
Location
Aberdeen, NC.
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I am by no means computer savvy!! I know the basics and that's about it. My problem is I had an old dell laptop and it got broken to the point I could do nothing with it but I pulled the hard drive as it has a lot of pics, music, and movies on it. How do I access them now? Can I buy a hdd enclosure and just plug it into another computer? For what it's worth it's a Western Digital 500 gig 3.5inch hd.
 
You can buy a USB interface cable and get whatever you want off of it for cheap, or put into an enclosure for $25 and make it more permanent for barely more money. Either way, it will be an interface/adapter board and a wall wart power supply to power the drive.

Also, that looks like a 2.5 inch drive, which would make more sense for a laptop. If that's the case, they can some cables/enclosures can be powered off the USB port if the drive is low enough power. You wouldn't have a wall wart for power basically.
 
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It's just a Sata drive. You can put it in an enclosure or another computer, but please make a copy of your data after you do.
 
Fabrik8 said:
You can buy a USB interface cable and get whatever you want off of it for cheap (roughly $20), or put into an enclosure and make it more permanent for more money. Either way, it will be an interface/adapter board and a wall wart power supply to power the drive.
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Even though it was formatted to run as the hard drive for a dell I can put it in an enclosure or get the interface cord and another kind of computer and it will recognize it?
 
skyhighZJ said:
Even though it was formatted to run as the hard drive for a dell I can put it in an enclosure or get the interface cord and another kind of computer and it will recognize it?
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Yep, no problems. It will just show up as an external drive with a bunch of files and folders on it, likely with multiple drive partitions because of the way Dell formats their drives. The main partition will have everything you want on it. The entire old operating system file structure will still be there, it just won't be running.
 
You are fine folks that never cease to amaze. Thank you. I have been frying out cause there are 7 deployments worth of memories on this thing.
 
skyhighZJ said:
You are fine folks that never cease to amaze. Thank you. I have been frying out cause there are 7 deployments worth of memories on this thing.
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You might also want to buy another external drive (Western digital passport for $50 or whatever) to back up all those files to a another location if they're that valuable to you. A drive that old that's been through a lot of abuse may not last forever, and then things really get difficult.
 
Fabrik8 said:
You might also want to buy another external drive (Western digital passport for $50 or whatever) to back up all those files to a another location if they're that valuable to you. A drive that old that's been through a lot of abuse may not last forever, and then things really get difficult.
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My thoughts were to buy another quality drive, transfer the files I want to save and stash it away in a safe place. The movies and music will be put on another drive for common usage.
 
If you get a passport or the like for $50, disassemble it and use it for the interface, copy everything to computer and put the new drive back in the passport and copy data back. ;-) Saves you buying an interface. Heck I think I had bought a 1 terabyte drive for $50 off the shelf. Ended up putting the drive in a laptop. Still got the interface though.
 
You can simply buy something like this if its sata. If its IDE you will have to find a different one.

Unless PCs have changed (i prefer linux), you will then need to map the drive (assign it a number) and then it will show up for you. Their are simple instructables online for this. The problem you will run into is the Windows SAM (its all password protected), so....

usually i prefer to boot up a RAM disc DSL (damn small linux) or PartedMagic, and then I can access it straight forward and bypass passwords, grab files off and onto a USB or even recovery the drive if files were deleted.
 
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ckruzer said:
You can simply buy something like this if its sata. If its IDE you will have to find a different one.

Unless PCs have changed (i prefer linux), you will then need to map the drive (assign it a number) and then it will show up for you. Their are simple instructables online for this. The problem you will run into is the Windows SAM (its all password protected), so....

usually i prefer to boot up a RAM disc DSL (damn small linux) or PartedMagic, and then I can access it straight forward and bypass passwords, grab files off and onto a USB or even recovery the drive if files were deleted.
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Now that I have verified that I don't understand Chinese.... what does this mean??
 
skyhighZJ said:
Now that I have verified that I don't understand Chinese.... what does this mean??
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If you simple take your main harddrive (the one with a operating system on it, and not a storage slave drive) you are going to have a problem accessing your files, because windows protects them. Sometimes, when the user actually has a password for their login, ive seen once where it actually prompted for a password entry and then allowed for access. I think that was on vista.. :shiver:

Regardless. You need the port like the link I showed you, and you need a program to access it (unless Windows 10 is drastically different and lets you do it now).

If youre savvy enough, you can run a simple linux program from the CD-Rom drive and access these without the windows authorization issue. I would be happy to lend you my HDD port if you pay shipping. I have the linux CD too. BUt if youre not savvy, that wont be your route.

The best route may be finding a computer friend and throwing some beer at em. lol.
 
In Windows if you plug the drive in to either a usb sata adapter or a free sata plug it will come up in my computer and if using usb, it will ask what you want to do when it's connected. Open to view files and copy away.
 
If the contents of the old drive are of great importance, which seems to be the case, I would also do an off site back up also. For lack of a better term, cloud storage. That way you have the files in 2 locations, just in case something happens to the physical drive.
 
a_kelley said:
In Windows if you plug the drive in to either a usb sata adapter or a free sata plug it will come up in my computer and if using usb, it will ask what you want to do when it's connected. Open to view files and copy away.
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Yes but there should be an issue with copying files located under a user (my docs, my pics, etc)
 
ckruzer said:
Yes but there should be an issue with copying files located under a user (my docs, my pics, etc)
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Never had that issue myself.. if you're logged in as admin shouldn't make any difference... Now if the files were encrypted under the old user, you're screwed unless you boot off the old drive as far as I know.
 
a_kelley said:
Never had that issue myself.. if you're logged in as admin shouldn't make any difference... Now if the files were encrypted under the old user, you're screwed unless you boot off the old drive as far as I know.
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Yes windows encrypts all users. Even if no password. So if you take a OS hdd from one computer and plug it into another computer, it won't matter as its encryption from another user.

Can you show how you do it!!! Would love to know. Windows has so many loopholes it's impossible to know them all. I hate having to play with Parted Magic just to help user files for friends and family
 
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Borrowed an enclosure from a friend till my docking station arrives. I have been able to look at the information (pics and such). I tried plugging the drive into my PS3 to access the movies and no dice. It doesn't even populate on the PS3 main screen. Fwiw on the dell HD it was an admin profile and login and it popped right up on the screen as e:drive then :user then choose appropriate file. Seems too easy. I'm going to get another hdd and copy the movies and see if I can pull them up to watch. I don't have or believe in paying for cable of any sort so we watch movies every once in a great whil around here. If it's a no go then so be it but at least it seems I'm able to access the pics and that's what I care about the most.
 
skyhighZJ said:
Borrowed an enclosure from a friend till my docking station arrives. I have been able to look at the information (pics and such). I tried plugging the drive into my PS3 to access the movies and no dice. It doesn't even populate on the PS3 main screen. Fwiw on the dell HD it was an admin profile and login and it popped right up on the screen as e:drive then :user then choose appropriate file. Seems too easy. I'm going to get another hdd and copy the movies and see if I can pull them up to watch. I don't have or believe in paying for cable of any sort so we watch movies every once in a great whil around here. If it's a no go then so be it but at least it seems I'm able to access the pics and that's what I care about the most.
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Yeah, it's all there. But make copies of the data, starting with the photographs and whatever else is most important. That drive is almost 9 years old. Lifespan on a WD Blue like that one is 5-7 years.
 
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