How do I retrieve files from a hard drive?

[Nbg]

Dh hd a slight accident this week and to cut a long story short our laptop is in pieces and no longer works.

I couldnt give two hoots about it but what we have since realised is that all our photos are on it.
I'm not bothered by losing most things but I cannot bear the thought of not getting them back.

Soooo, how can we get them back?
Dh has tried the hard drive in an old laptop and that hasnt worked. He also tried it in the pc I'm using now but its a different size.

Someone help me before I break dh's neck.

you need professional help methinks, before your dh erases them all for good! Look up data recovery firms on the net close to where you live... it may cost a bit, but worth it for the photos.

Then get an external hard drive to back up to in future Been there, lost lots...

Right will do that.

I've said I dont care how much it costs.
I'll sell the house if need be!

Thank you

Is your Hard drive itself still in one piece and working, and the problem is just that you haven't got anything to connect it with?How about one of these
You can just put it in one of these & connect it by USB.
I've never actually tried it myself, but a friend of DH's has & says it's pretty easy.

Laptop hard drives are 2.5 inch. Also you need to check whether the hard drive is SATA or IDE. (Ie. is the connecting cable a thin red ribban (ie, SATA) or a wide grey ribban (ie, IDE)

Get an appriopate USB caddy. If you take the hard drive to a small computer shop they will be able to advise you which sort of USB caddy is best.

All you have to do is fit the hard drive into the USB caddy and plug it in.

Have a look at this

cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-5-Hard-Disk-External-HDD-case-USB2-0-1-1-UK-Seller_W0QQitemZ28020541 6117QQihZ018QQcategoryZ86759QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

It has an adapter so you can choose the appriopate connections for your hard drive.

errm.. ..RT - that won't help for laptops that typically don't use cable at all - the hard drive typically plugs up to another connector. It'll say on top of the hard drive which sort it is and thereafter buy one of the USB caddys rusty bear mentioned..

If you're stuck, PC World I think do a file retrieval service that might work for you. Not cheap, I think it's either £99 or £199.

Sorry I didnt come back last night.

Dh has looked at those things on ebay. He said he was thinking of trying it in his brothers laptop too as its the same make but a couple of models earlier.

Other than that the pc world option maybe good as the insurance are giving us a voucher to replace it from there.

Thanks for all the help.

Is the laptop broken - or will the operating system just not start-up? If the latter, you could download something like Ubuntu (a user friendly operating system) to boot your laptop from - that will give you access to the hard drive and give you USB and network connectivity. Google for "retrieve files using ubuntu" to find things like jclark.org/weblog/2005/12/23/ubrescue/

bit late on this one... get something like the last 2 items on this page.. I have one and it is invaluable...

Basically it can turn pretty much any internal HDD into a USB hot plug devices... just connect it to the drive and connected the provided PSU if required and then connect to a working PC.. the drive will mount as a slave and you can get all your data

www.usbnow.co.uk/Adapters_&_Connectors-USB_to_IDE_Adapters/c42_46/index.html?gclid=CN TUp_XW-JECFQwTIgodTXEFqQ

Nbg, the thing about trying it in another laptop instead of the one that's there will be that it will be trying to boot up from it. You want it as a second drive so you can use the normal operating system to look at it and copy off the bits you want.

If it does have some kind of special connector (Sata?) then presumably the USB caddy will have all kinds so I reckon that's good advice.

the bable spec'ed above will do sata and ide drives..

That link didn't work for me. I think it was mangled a bit by the bulletin board. Try this link. It looks like a very useful piece of kit.

This site has good advice

You're really trying hard, aren't you Cod?

And a cheaper version on ebay