Switching Hard Drives

[Sean Lee1]

Hey guys,

I have an old laptop that hasn't worked for years. I'm not sure if there is any data (photos, files, etc.) on it, but I'd like to check. I was going to buy a USB hard drive adapter, but it seems as though all of the big box stores had no idea what I was talking about; Best Buy had one one for $50, but that's a little too expensive; and all / most of the local computer stores are closed on Sunday. So, I'm wondering what would happen if I took the hard drive out of the laptop that I'm using now, and replaced it with the one from the computer that no longer works, just so I could transfer / upload any files to an external hard drive and/or OneDrive. Could this work? What are the chances of me f*cking up the computer that I'm on now?

 

[realwarder]

Impossible to mess up the computer you're on unless you somehow break plastic/connectors/don't touch metal to discharge static electricity first. Whether the old drive will boot without drivers /changing bios settings is an unknown but all you do is try... But get the network drivers on a flash drive before swapping drives in case the old drive doesn't have drivers and cannot get online.

 

[Sean Lee1]

Thank you! I tried but it didn't fit, so I guess I'm buying the extension from Amazon after all. I just hope I buy the right thing. No surprise here, I don't know very much about the hardware. Haha

 

[realwarder]

There are many cheap adaptors which are USB to IDE and SATA etc. Read the reviews and you'll be fine!