Accessing a harddrive from old Dell

~J~ · 27 Aug 2008 at 11:46

I'm hoping this is possible!!!!

We have, I mean had, a Dell computer in our office but last week it gave up the ghost and went bang in a beautiful manner (5 capacitors blew their brains out).

The harddrive on it has some critical information that we need to get, however upon removing the drive from the PC it looks to be a laptop drive and as such the standard IDE cable won't fit.

The drive is a "Hitachi Travelstar - 40Gb ATA/IDE".

Is there a cable that converts a 'small sized' IDE to the standard sized IDE?

Schnippzle · 27 Aug 2008 at 12:46

There are converters out there yes

google is your friend.

rpstewart · 27 Aug 2008 at 12:54

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-002-OK&groupid=701&catid=48&subcat=151&name=Startech%202.5"%20to%203.5"%20IDE%20Hard%20Drive%20Cable%20Adapter

Out of stock though.

~J~ · 27 Aug 2008 at 13:02

Ahhhh so long as it CAN be done then I can wait (within reason) for them to come into stock.

Cheers.

Grimgoth · 27 Aug 2008 at 13:09

you can also get external hard drive cases which will allow you to hook them up to usb.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...l P2 USB 2.0 2.5" Hard Drive Enclosure - Blue

or even a multipurpose non enclosed one:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...iveLink 2.5"/3.5" IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 Adapter