Laptop hard drive, Need Help Bad

I accidently physically destroyed my laptop. THe hard drive though is intact. I need information off of it. What I would like to do is install it in my desktop so that I could access this info. Unfortunately it doesn’t have the same connectorys as a standard hard drive. Does anybody know where I can buy a convertor so that I can put this hard drive in my desktop?

It’s a 4.3 gig drive out of a presario 1655.

THe drive in question is a Fijitso model 4hc2040at.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Not a problem. I have one of these adapters in my gadget box. The connector is based on IDE spec although it is different physically than the standard IDE connector.
You can get adapters for around 10.00 - 15.00 that will allow you to connect this drive to a standard IDE cable.

MAKE SURE you know the pin out of this drive and where pin one (1) is for purposes of cable polarity because the power is sent through one of the the cable pins and if you connect the cable backwards to a notebook drive you can blow out the drive electronics.

See
http://www.dalco.com
http://www.cyberguys.com

Thanks! I’m not sure what the name of what I am looking for is though. COuld I trouble you tro provide a link to the specific product I need?

Thanks again in advance.

Shortened link

the above is all one link

or go to the http://www.dalco.com site and look for part number
48760

It’s $ 9.00

[Moderator’s note: I shortened the link to prevent screen scrolling. -manhattan]

Do you have another laptop? Even a different brand has a good chance of reading it. Suck the data off via network or ‘direct cable connection’ (assuming this is Windows; I believe you mentioned using Power Point on it.)

Billiehunt, how would you connect two drives into one laptop?

In my desktop I back up but just connecting a second drive and making an exact copy. Then I disconnect it and put it away. (I have not put the cover on the box since I bought it)

I would like to have two identical drives for my Acer Extensa 368 and do the same thing. I guess it would require a sort of combination y-conector - extension that would provide two external connectors.

I think the question has been answered, but I thought, given the name of the poster, that I would express my regret that the question wasn’t titled “Between a rock and a hard drive”.

sailor wrote

I don’t know if this can be done. I’ve never actually seen it done, although it may be possible.

You are right, having two drives set up would be an easier solution for copying the contents. I was just pointing out that without a special adaptor, another solution is available.

If your really want to do this Apricorn replacment drive kits come with just such an adapter (see http://www.necx.com)for transferring info from old drive to new with both connected at once but few notebooks (if any) would allow both drives to be inside unit. The IDE channel chipset in a notebook is based on the same drive channel setup as a desktop and allows a single notebook IDE channel to accomodate two drives via connection off that channel.

Ordered that stuff today. Thanks astro. You are a lifesaver!

Ummm. Okay, I got the connector. How do I figure out which side the power goes to?

go to http://www.fujitsu.com and go to US support area

or

http://www.fcpa.com/support/su_support_frame.html

go to discontinued drives
go to MHC2040AT drive type
go to jumpers

Bill, I don’t believe there are any laptops on the market today with the ability to add a second hard drive.

With todays portable storage solutions, there is no real need for 2 drives, IMO. With USB, FireWire, SCSI ports, Docking stations and network transfers today, and the cheap price of today’s HDD’s, it’s just a waste of space.

An extra drive slot would really muck up the footprint and weight of a lappy.

Scylla, I believe that power is included in the ribbon cable for your HD, and if you line the red stripe up with pin 1, you’re in business!!

-Sam

Well, I went to the Fujitso website, and couldn’t find anything helpful.

I looked at the old cable, and saw that one side was a little thicker than the other. I assumed that was where the power was, so I took a chance and plugged it in that way.

It worked!

I got my data back!

Thanks guys!

where do I send the check?

I’m glad you got your info from that drive.

This won’t help you now, but for future reference - the drive you were hooking up has two sets of pins. The long rows you obviously figured out is where the cable goes, the four small pins are where you would put the jumper if you needed it. Always point the red of the cable toward those 4 pins, and you are in like Flynn.

Unlike a larger drive, the cable supplies your power to these little drives, so no additional hookup is needed.

I work with a bunch of different makes and models of these small drives every day. We use them as one of the components of the product we make.

So Scylla, do you stil have the power adapter for the laptop? Someone gave us [thrift shop] one with no power adapter. 15v 1amp or there abouts…

I’ll take it, if no one else speaks up. Always glad to take credit for others’ work.

It’s a Targus replacement for a 1600 series compaq replacement. I only have the power tip for that model, but you can buy others at the Targus website cheap. Model number pa150u. Output is 16v/2.2a, OR 10V/3.5A depending on the tip.

Check it out at the website, if you think it will work, it’s up for grabs (I bought a model 1900 compaq as a replacement so the adapter is no good to me.)

More info here:

Thanks. I don’t really do specific laptop power adapters. They are kind of interchangable. As a matter of fact, I use a camcorder battery charger adapter to test some laptops. But its the tip thats the catch. The tip of the supply is big & few adapters are that big. The center post is large & that fools a lot of universal adapters. But I use some wires & paper & rig it to test them.