Pulling Data off old HDD

[jbl772]

Accidentally made a thread in the UK forum haha...anyways

So my sister has a really old laptop with a IDE Ultra 100 hard drive. I was wondering if anyone knew how I would pull the data off of it. I'm guessing it has Windows XP on it.

I was thinking to buy an IDE Ultra 100 to SATA adapter, then connect it to my desktop...but I don't know how that would work since it has an OS on it. Any ideas/suggestions?



Phil22 suggested: Buy an IDE hard drive enclosure. Fit the hard drive into it, then plug it into a spare USB port.


My following question was:

Will that work for any size IDE drive (physical dimensions) the drive seems smaller than usual (physical dimensions)

And it will work for an Ultra 100 IDE drive?

 

[mbreslin1954]

You can get an IDE-to-USB interface, then connect it to your desktop via USB cable. It doesn't matter whether there's an operating system on the hard drive, it will be formatted as an NTFS file system, you just navigate to the files you want and copy them to your desktop's hard drive. Quite simple, really.

Here's an example of a cheap adapter, even if you aren't in the U.S. and can't order from Newegg, at least you know what you're looking for:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

 

[jbl772]

I am in the US, I just accidentally posted in theirs haha.

It'll work for the IDE Ultra ATA100 connection? I know it's a little different than regular IDE

This is her hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149026

 

[mbreslin1954]

I have one of these, and yes, it'll work for any IDE drive. There hasn't been a change to the IDE spec for quite a while. I don't think many have been making them or buying them much for the past few years. ATA100 is old. I have used it on ATA100 drives.

 

[smorizio]

if the laptop still boots into windows you can turn on file sharing on windows xp and then move her files from the laptop to the desktop over the network. they also make usb laplink cables and software. the real easy way is pick up a large usb data stick and just drag and drop her files onto the usb stick then onto the desktop.

 

[jbl772]

Yeah I know how computers work lol. Her laptop doesn't turn on and it broke maybe 7-8 years ago and she doesn't know how...so I'm just assuming the HDD is still in tact.

Thanks for the input mbreslin1954