Need help restoring data off of old latop HDD

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Earlier this morning i had an adapter arive in the post to help me get all the data off a drive out of a broken laptop (the drive should be fine). It's all plugged in (i believe correctly) but the drive doesnt appear in the bios. ANyway, im a noob and know nothing so i came to you clever people for help

thanks :)
 
If you're talking about an adapter then I assume it's an IDE drive? Have you got both power and data cables going to the adapter?
 
The fact that it's not spinning up is concerning. Let's start from the basics then....

Make sure that:
1) The IDE controller is enabled in the BIOS
2) The cables are the right way round at both ends
3) There is only one device on the IDE cable - ie the laptop drive
4) The jumpers on the adapter are set to master/device0

It is possible that the drive is actually dead, what symptoms was the laptop exhibiting?
 
the problem with the laptop was the motherboard (broken BY Dell ut lets not go into that)
where do i enable the ide controller in the bios? there doesnt seem to be an obvious place...
cables all in correct and only lappy on the cable
jumpers not set... hows the best way to do that?
 
Check the IDE controller under the Advanced tab - Onboard Devices Configuration (assuming it's the PC in your sig we're talking about).

Without seeing the adapter it's difficult to say how the jumpers should be configured. Is there anything printed on the adapter circuit board or any instructions available?
 
Is there not a plastic jumper cap on the adapter already? They're pretty much a standard spacing so you should be able to scavenge one from an old board, HDD or DVD if you have any lying about.
 
Yeah, open pins is the way to go. However I'm coming to the conclusion that the disk is dead.

You don't have or know anyone with an USB caddy for 2.5" HDDs, you might have more luck with that.
 
fraid not.. may have to be abandoned.. :( nothing crucial on there, havent used the machine for 2 years but only just got round to looking at it :p


problem now is after unplugging all the sata devices i get no display on startup when i put it all back together :/ probably unplugged something accidentally, should be sorted firly quickly :)

thanks for all the help!!!!
 
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