My very old PC finally gave up a couple of weeks ago (the motherboard went). I have some information I want to get off the hard drive – what’s the easiest/cheapest way to do it? Is there just a cable I can buy to plug into the hard drive to use it as an external on my laptop?

You could buy an enclosure so you could run it as a usb drive – try ebay. What type of HD is it? Eg Sata, IDE etc

Eg – http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-5-HARD-DISK-DRIVE-CASE-USB-2-0-HDD-ENCLOSURE-UK_W0QQitemZ230337201109QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_HardDriveEnclosures_RL?hash=item230337201109&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1308%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

You can buy USB enclosures which you put the old drive into and treat as an external HDD. You would need to check the specification though if its a really old drive.

Something like this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160919

Edit: What Grumm said – too slow 🙁

thanks guys. Any advice on how I can tell what type it is? I have it here in my hand but it doesn’t say SATA or IDE on it.

It has various codes on it: S/N; P/N; HDA P/N; Config; Firmware…any of these useful?

Whack the model number into Google and it should tell you. Or, post it on here and someone else will.

wow…it does too. thanks geoff

this is it

Why not just buy a ribbon cable with two slots and just plug it in as a secondary. Your ribbon cable might already have a spare slot.

You may need to swap the jumper over (on one end) but there should be a little diagram showing you what to do for it to be a secondary.

Why not just buy a ribbon cable with two slots and just plug it in as a secondary. Your ribbon cable might already have a spare slot.

You might need to swap the jumper over (on one end) but there should be a little diagram showing you what to do for it to be a secondary.

This would work, but the OP wants to access it with a laptop.

Why not just buy a ribbon cable with two slots and just plug it in as a secondary. Your ribbon cable might already have a spare slot.

That would work for a PC but not a laptop I don’t think?

I have it here in my hand but it doesn’t say SATA or IDE on it.

look at the connector- if it’s 2 long rows of about 20 pins in a rectangular frame with a slot on one edge it’s IDE, whereas the SATA connector is only about 12mm wide and single row.

wow…it does too. thanks geoff

this is it

That ebuyer one geoffj posted should do the trick fine then.

thanks everyone

buy a new motherboard and fit that. Did the power supply go pop and fry the motherboard by any chance? mine did that a few years ago. New power supply for 10.00 and a new motherboard for 55.00 that all my bits fitted and it was all sorted in about an hour.

Parts from Micro direct. cheap as chips

someone unplugged the power supply while the PC was switched on and the motherboard bought it!

It was a really old computer (and not actually mine any more) so it’s not worth fixing. I just wanted to rescue some data from the HD and the in-laws have an opportunity to buy a new laptop to replace it.

I’ve bought the right cable and connected the old HDD to the laptop but it doesn’t recognise it. When I first tried a few days ago it recognised the hard drive but I couldn’t access it – now I can’t even see it.

any ideas?

the HDD is plugged in and sounds ‘on’.

There is a (small) CD that came with it but the instructions say it only has drivers for Windows98 (I’m running XP) – also the CD seems too small to fit into the CD drive! (it is a slot, not a drawer)