Help reading HDD from scrapped laptop

mach1 · 13 Jul 2007 at 14:24

Following a (very) unfortunate mishap, I have a Sony Vaio laptop which has been trashed by cracking the screen. The vaio was fitted with an 80Gb Toshiba HDD, so I got myself a SATA to IDE adapter and reckoned I would be able to install it as the primary drive in a desktop thus being able to access the stuff in 'My Documents'.

Unfortunately (!*) when the PC boots, it starts OK but then indicates that Windows needs to be registered. When I try to do so, it says it is already registered! Is this a case of a 'bodged Sony OEM' version of Windows Home Media - which refuses to run on non-Sony hardware?

Any ideas how I would be able to read the contents of 'My Documents'? I can clearly use the disk as a slave in the desktop, but as far as I am aware there is no way that this will let me get access to files in the 'My Documents' area.

Any help (very) gratefully received.

Regards

Mach1

Slackworth · 13 Jul 2007 at 14:37

Sony (as do most other vendors) use a special OEM key rather than the one on the bottom of the laptop. I know when I got mine, if you want to install Vista as a blank rather than recover their image you had to use Jellybean Keyfinder rather than the one on the bottom. You also need the encryption file that is hidden in the system folders somewhere and there was a third step too (got the guide at home). This is for Vista although I'd have thought XP is similar.

As for running the drive as a slave, follow this guide: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q308421 and you should be able to get access.

Captain Kirk · 13 Jul 2007 at 14:49

If it is just a cracked screen, have you tried using a normal monitor hooked up to it? Or is the whole laptop knackered?

mach1 · 13 Jul 2007 at 22:34

'Fraid the whole laptop has had it - although it DID work briefly using an external monitor.

As for using the drive as a slave, I'll take a look at the Microsoft page and see how I get on. My initial problem, when I connected it 'as a slave' in a desktop was that somehow it kept 'taking command'! However I set the jumper on the existing Maxtor IDE drive, the bios insisted in trying to boot from the Toshiba laptop drive - instead of the maxtor. I didn's seem to be able to alter this using the BIOS setup. Any thoughts on this, as whatever I do, I imagine SOMEHOW I need to get it inside a working desktop - behaving as a slave - not a master.

Thanks

Mach1

mattyrigby00 · 13 Jul 2007 at 22:58

there should be an option in the bios to set hard drive priority - if not i have no idea

Slackworth · 14 Jul 2007 at 00:02

You should be able to set boot priority and also you may be able to press an F key on POST to choose a boot device.

teaboy5 · 14 Jul 2007 at 01:27

Ok

First thing i would do, is see if you can borrow a hard drive enclosure from somewhere and plug the drive into that.

And then just plug it into usb on your computer.

Job done

Also it may be worth buying one, as you can get one for next to nothing

teaboy5 · 14 Jul 2007 at 01:28

mach1 said:
I can clearly use the disk as a slave in the desktop, but as far as I am aware there is no way that this will let me get access to files in the 'My Documents' area.

Mach1

Easy fix that, you need to take ownership of the folder.

mach1 · 14 Jul 2007 at 11:42

I too would have expected to be able to set the boot sequence for the hard drives in the bios setup, but it obstinately refuses to accept anything apart from the Toshiba disk. I think getting the disk enclosure to turn the drive into a 80Gb usb drive sounds like the way forward. I had thought of this, but had initially ruled it out as I thought it would be straight forward to put the drive INSIDE the desktop! Using this approach, I can boot the desktop as normal and THEN plug in the USB - which I hope will solve things.

Thanks to everyone.

teaboy5 · 14 Jul 2007 at 14:30

Post back with any other questions

ByteJuggler · 14 Jul 2007 at 17:37

mach1 said:
Any ideas how I would be able to read the contents of 'My Documents'? I can clearly use the disk as a slave in the desktop, but as far as I am aware there is no way that this will let me get access to files in the 'My Documents' area.

No this is not correct. If you run the drive as slave, you can take ownership of the files/folders, after which you can change the file permissions etc. after which you can obviously do as you like with the files. To do this, make sure you've got simple File Sharing disabled (otherwise the "Security" tab will not be visible when you right click on a folder and click Properties), then right click on the folder, click "Security", click Advanced and somewhere under there you'll be able to change the owner of the files etc. (That's all off the top of my head so apologies so take it fwiw.)