Hot Swap laptop HDD

1119 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by the_beast, Dec 6, 2009

Nhb93

Discussion Starter · Dec 5, 2009

My parent's HP laptop has been giving them some major trouble lately. After a liveCD boot into Ubuntu, it's clear the hard drive has lots of bad sectors. I need a way to hook it up to my desktop to transfer the important data off it. I realize now that it's not SATA, but it doesn't look like IDE pins either. Here's a picture of it. I need a device that will let me hook it up to my desktop, either through USB, or directly into the SATA port on my motherboard. I live near a MicroCenter, so if you could find a device there, I can pick it up. I was looking at this but the drive has more of fins than pins, so I'm not sure it would work. Thanks OCN.

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the_beast

· #2 · Dec 5, 2009

Looks like a standard SATA drive in a holder/caddy to me.

Check the underside for 2-4 screws and remove them - the drive should slide forward and out of the caddy, revealing a standard SATA port. Unlike IDE, the SATA port on a laptop drive is identical to that found on desktop drives.

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Nhb93

Discussion Starter · #3 · Dec 5, 2009

You sir, are 100% correct. +Rep to you for telling me that, and saving me time and money.

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chatch15117

· #4 · Dec 6, 2009

Same thing happened to me when I bought this scorpio black off the egg. I took a look at the old 160GB drive, and then over at the scorpio and i was like WHAT? But then I realized it was just a connector that slides onto the new drive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_beast

So I have my old 160GB laptop drive just sitting in a box. If it's the same size as a desktop SATA port, does that mean I can plug it in and use it as an internal backup drive? What power cable(if any) does it use?

EDIT: found the answer on google.

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the_beast

· #5 · Dec 6, 2009

Just for future reference for anybody else reading this -

The SATA ports (power and data) on a 2.5" drive is exactly the same as that found on a 3.5" drive. You can use the same data and power cables as you would with desktop drives. The connectors are even located the same distance from the lower right corner of the drive, so with suitable spacers 2.5" drives can be mounted in 3.5" hotswap bays (although actually getting this to work is tricky, because the mounting holes are in different places).

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