Re: [PLUG] Recovering data from dead laptop hard drive

[Gordon Dexter <gordon@texasdex.com>]

Walt Mankowski wrote:

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 09:50:11PM -0500, Casey Bralla wrote:
  

Laptop drives have 50 pins and a slightly different connector scheme.  You can 
buy an adapter connector for a couple of bucks to make them work.  You can't 
just plug them in to a normal 40-pin IDE connector and let the extra pins 
dangle.  The larger connector also supplied power to the drive.
    

Well, it's getting power from somewhere with just 44 pins, since I can
hear it spin up and click while the USB cable's connected, and spin
down when I unplug it.  That's good to know, though.  Thanks.
  

If you're using a USB cable then in all likelihood it's the right kind.  Does it look something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

That kind of cable has one side for 3.5" drives and one side for 2.5" (laptop) drives.  I've used mine before and there are always 4 pins on one side that it doesn't touch, but works just fine.  The label on my old Hitachi indicates that yes, those pins are for master/slave jumpering, and without a jumper it is set to master..

Honestly if you've tried the freezer trick and that didn't work then I doubt anything else will, short of professional data recovery services.  You could try replacing the circuit board, but given the clicking sound the disk probably had a head crash or something like that; I doubt you'll ever get a bit of data off of it.  Just be glad you had most of it backed up, and chalk the rest up to bad luck.  Sorry...

--Gordon

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