Laptop data recovery

I've had some experience in the past with using an adaptor with a power supply to extract information of hard drives onto another computer. I'm trying to get some information off a laptop HD and I thought my current adaptor would work in extracting the information, but the connector is a different shape than what is on the HD. Is there a different connector for laptops or would I need to get an entirely new connector?

HD Specs:
Western Digital Serial ATA Hard Drive
Model Number: WD1200BEVS

Thanks again for the continued assistance!

 

My adaptor works with SATA drives, the connector's aren't compatible. It seems the one on the laptop is smaller than normal SATA drives in desktop PCs. Is there typically a different connector used for laptop SATA drives?

 

There is a USB Netlink Adapter which will do that job. It's made by Digitus comes with the USB link and software and transfers at 480 Mbps. Search in www.digitus.info.
The unit cost $34.00 NZ. and works for me. Cheers Neil.

 

SATA connectors should be the same for both (IDE connectors were different). We swap both on the same SATA HDD docking port at work all day.

Are you sure you are not getting the data cable and the power cable mixed up? The power cable connector is much larger than the data cable connector.

Matt

 

The drive was attached to a "housing" that was used to insert into the laptop, however, the connections were the true connections for the actual HD. I'm 200% certain I'm using the right connection adaptor to try to attach to the drive. I'll check out the product that was listed earlier in the thread and see if they look compatible.

 

I looked through the packaging that came with the USB adaptor and I was able to find the SATA connector cable to connect the laptop to the desktop. Turns out I was using the IDE connector and didn't realize it wasn't going to fit since it was the wrong connection, shows how much I truly know about computers. Anyway, off to see if I can recover the data from the drive.

 

Sounds good. You are improving your experience level

 

Sorry to bump an old topic, but I've been encountering a problem acquiring the data from the drive in question. My experience is a little limited, but when I connected an old drive to my current pc (same type of situation) my computer was able to read the old drive. This time however, my PC is completely unable to recognize the drive, but it's aware that the drive is connected.

My question is, assuming that connecting it is going correctly, does this suggest that the data on the drive is damaged and can't be recovered? Or is it possible to get a program that will extract and information I'm looking to get?

 

Have you checked in Disk Management (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management)? You might just need to give it a drive letter. Maybe oversimplifying, but you don't want to bypass something simple. Where do you see it "identified "?

 

I've not done that yet, checking it out now.

My PC "Identifies" the other drive in the dialog bubble that pops up in the lower right hand corner when the external device is connected. It basically says new hardware was installed successfully etc. Once I try to access the external drive however, it's not listed under my computer where it normally would be listed.

 

I fumbled around with some of the menus on the computer that I know how to access and I was able to find the drive. However, it's not showing the drive itself, it's just showing the device I'm using to connect it to the PC. It's being shown as this "USB to IDE/SATA Device USB Device ". Moving onward I got the properties of it and looked to see what volumes are shown on the drive. Nothing was shown on default so I populated the list to see if it would show and it said "Type: Unknown" and "Status: Unreadable ". I'm beginning to think I won't be able to recover the pictures based on the damage done to the drive.