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Use 3.5" drive on laptop

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Use 3.5" drive on laptop

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hi all, i am interested in a 3.5" drive for my laptop (different OS, yes i know i can use multiboot), but where can i get an adaptor? can this be done?
Ideally i'd need a long lead to go into the laptop and let the drive sit on the outside.

thanks in advance for any advice.

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The only solution I can think of is to get a PCMCIA sata card and use that to connect to an external sata enclosure. BTW, what did you mean by "different OS" ?

Stuart

Reply to stuart72

Hi, I want to have different operating systems on the laptop, but without using the multiboot options nad having partitions, so i have spare 3.5" drives and wanted to use these for experimenting with the operating systems while still ahving my normal config on the 2.5 internal hard drive.

Can laptops load from PCMCIA?

Reply to gavinwatson
- -1 +

well well well... what a great contribution... great stuff...

Reply to gavinwatson

well does your laptop support booting from usb, you could get an external enclosure

if you do this, i would make sure the boot sector is on the internal laptop drive so when you take it somewhere you can still boot from it (aka if using xp and win7, install xp first on the external then win7 on the laptop drive)

Reply to mindless728
- 0 +

The SATA plug is the same, but you'd need to supply it with a separate power source. Laptops supply their drives with 3.3V and 5V power, while desktop drives also require a 12V.

------------------------------ Asus P6T deluxe
i7 965 @ 4.2GHz (200*21), 1.384V
12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 CAS 7
Reply to cjl

Forgot to mention, its IDE, not SATA

Reply to gavinwatson
- 0 +

If your laptop will boot from usb, then an external enclosure will be your best bet. I used to have an adapter to put laptop drives in a desktop but they are few and far between, and I'venever seen the the one your looking for.

I know the ide cables are smaller, and the laptop has integrated power in the ide cable.
I'm fairly sure that notebook sata is also mini unless you have an e-sata.
You could also consider a network boot seen them before but never set one up.

------------------------------ E8400 : GA-EP35-DS3L : mushkin 4GB DDR2 800 : HD 2600PRO : 450W ATX12V : Windows 7
Reply to 505090
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > Use 3.5" drive on laptop
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