Using a laptop hard drive in a desktop computer

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christianmusicjunki

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Sep 24, 2017
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My laptop bit the dust and I got myself a PC. Rather than copying everything from the hard drive of the laptop to the PC, I just want to use the hard drive froum the laptop as a slave drive in the PC. Having watched some YouTube videos I now understand how to do it. I know that I need to get a data cable cause I don't have an extra one. I have One going to my existing hard drive and one going to the DVD drive. But I don't see any place on the board to plug in another data cable. The two existing cables are plugged into the only two ports that there are. Am I missing something?
 
Solution
grmnlxndr
If it is SATA, it uses the same connectors for data and energy as a 3.5 drive.
If your motherboard is slightly old or low end, it could only have 2 SATA ports. So you'll have to take your DVD drive out. You could do that and transfer all your data (or the important data) from your laptop drive to your desktop drive, and then reinstall the DVD drive.
If you plan to do that, you won't need to mount your laptop drive in the case, just place where it won't fall.

Regards
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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The physical drive, sure.
Standard SATA connections, and your desktop case probably has dedicated mount points for a 2.5" drive.

An OS and applications installed on it? No.
 
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grmnlxndr

grmnlxndr

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May 17, 2012
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If it is SATA, it uses the same connectors for data and energy as a 3.5 drive.
If your motherboard is slightly old or low end, it could only have 2 SATA ports. So you'll have to take your DVD drive out. You could do that and transfer all your data (or the important data) from your laptop drive to your desktop drive, and then reinstall the DVD drive.
If you plan to do that, you won't need to mount your laptop drive in the case, just place where it won't fall.

Regards
 
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Solution
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christianmusicjunki

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Sep 24, 2017
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MERGED QUESTION
Question from christianmusicjunki : "Transferring data between hard drives"

My laptop died and I got a PC. Can't use the laptop hard drive as a slave drive because I lack both a data cable and a data port. I want to just copy the data from the laptop hard drive to the PC hard drive. Can I unplug the DVD drive data cable and plug it into the laptop hard drive? I'm also not 100% sure about the transfer process so could someone please confirm this? Once I connect the laptop hard drive and power of the computer, as I understand it both hard drives will appear when I go to "my computer". I can then select the laptop hard drive and copy and paste files from there. Is that correct?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Yes, you ca use the SATA cable from the DVD to connect the drive from the laptop. The PSU should have sufficient power connectors for this.

And yes, the drive 'should' appear as just another drive letter in "This PC" or "My COmputer".
Find what you need, copy/paste to the drive int he desktop.

For some things and locations, you may run into Ownership issues.
Files that are under the laptop User folders are tied to that original 'user'.
Take Ownership, Here, or Here, or here
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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MERGED QUESTION
Question from christianmusicjunki : "Laptop hard drive files not displaying"





OK...now we're into the 3rd thread on this. Let's not do this, OK?

More info needed
What OS? Desktop and what was on the laptop.
Screencap of "This PC"
Screencap of Disk Management.
 
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