Laptop Drive

[Dr J]

Hi, I need some help. A friend's LG laptop died, probably the power supply. He wants the data off the drive and so I suggested removing it from the laptop and putting it in an external case (with the added benefit of using it as a backup drive). However, I never thought, as the laptop drive is a boot drive, will we be able to access the data and/or programs on the drive?

thanks,

John

 

[Golgatha]

Yes, you'll be able to browse it and recover the files just like any other HDD.

 

[Dr J]

Ok, thank you!

 

[Charlie98]

Just make sure your system doesn't try to use it as the OS drive at startup...

 

[corkyg]

A sure to to handle that is, when in the external case, hot plug it after the host system is already booted. You can then simply access all the files directly.

 

[Russwinters]

you will also potentially have to take file permissions, its not to bad, if it starts giving you messages about not having permission, etc. reply and myself or someone can likely give you the steps to take permissions.

 

[Dr J]

Hello and thanks. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "hot plugging it?" The friend now has his old hd in an external case and has access, but isn't able to boot any of his programs (I didn't know this was what he was after). I always assumed you wouldn't be able to access a program this way unless the drive was the boot drive. Are you saying that by "hot plugging it" after bootup he'd be able to access his programs from the external drive on a different computer and if so, how?

 

[Dr J]

Anyone?

 

[Charlie98]

Anyone?

By hot plugging he means plugging it in after the system is booted and running. If the system is up already, it won't try to use the laptop drive (in this instance) as a boot drive.

If you plug it in before boot, just use the 'select boot drive' utility and designate the proper drive before starting the OS. It will probably default to the normal OS HDD, but just to make sure...

 

[Gunbuster]

" The friend now has his old hd in an external case and has access, but isn't able to boot any of his programs"

Windows doesn't work that way. Your buddy needs to re-install the programs from install media.

 

[Dr J]

Thanks and yes, that's how I believed it to work, as in this case, a no can do.