UKC

lap top hard drive mount question ?

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 mike123 21 Nov 2012
according to the specs my old compaq lap top has ATA - 5 , but looking on line for an external bay (so i can pull it out plug it in and try and recover data) they only seem to come in P - ATA or S - ATA . will one of these be compatible ?
ta.
 wilkie14c 21 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123:
what model compaq is it?
michaelc 21 Nov 2012
Seems to be a PATA, but there can be more than one cable (based on 3.5 and 2.5 inch drives). Probably you've a good chance with a 2.5 inch pata external enclosure (should be cheap anyway).

But really, until you take out the drive and examine it you'll not know for sure what sort of connectors they've used.
OP mike123 21 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123: thanks both , its a V2000
OP mike123 21 Nov 2012
In reply to michaelc: when i take it out how will i tell ? i did last night to see if it said either of these on it, it did nt.
 wilkie14c 21 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123:
hang on 2 mins, i'll just check
 wilkie14c 21 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123:
Mike according to my info the V2000 is an IDE hard drive <PATA> and it had an adaptor strip plugged into the connecting pins to allow the HDD to connect to the laptop. this adaptor should just pull off, you dont need it for a hard drive caddy. You'll need an IDE to USB caddy then, take a look at item number 280423530758 on ebay, £2.75 delivered. I have the same one from the same seller, it works just fine.
OP mike123 21 Nov 2012
In reply to blanchie14c: hey thanks for this, read it on my phone, combined a couple of other errands together and engineered a visit to got pc world , got one for £10, i will report back later , with further questions no doubt , if i need software to look at the drive once i ve got it in the thing what shall i get ?
 Kieran_John 21 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123:

You won't, it'll just pop up like an external drive
OP mike123 21 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123: the hard drive is in a metal case, it will need to come out of this to go in the caddy that i got, is this normal ? it looks like 8 small torx screws to remove it
 ben b 22 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123: try looking at ifixit.com? Might be in there.
b
 Neil Williams 22 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123:

For general reference as you seem to have worked it out OK, the difference between P-ATA and S-ATA is fairly visibly obvious - P-ATA is a wide ribbon cable connector, S-ATA much smaller.

Neil
 wilkie14c 22 Nov 2012
In reply to mike123:
> (In reply to mike123) the hard drive is in a metal case, it will need to come out of this to go in the caddy that i got, is this normal ? it looks like 8 small torx screws to remove it

Yes, the metal case its in is its caddy and unique to the laptop itself, not the hard drive. Its just a way of mounting the drive <which all have the same shape> inside the laptop <which every one is different> dunno about 8 screws though, they normally have 4 cross headed screws holding them in the caddy, 2 each side on the long sides of the drive. Don't be taking the actual hard drive apart by mistake! As said above, one its fitted to your UBS adaptor, plug it into a computer and it should auto reconise it as an external drive and assaign it a drive letter. Using windows explorer you can then access the files on it, you'll see the windows, program files and users folders on it and clicking through the users folders you should work out where the 'my documents' folder is. I take it you are after photos and docs etc? They should be in the my documents folder once you find it. Obviously copy these to the good computer. Once all swapped over you can then format the drive and use it as plug and play addition storage/backs ups

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...