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"Fredd Wright" <> wrote in message
news:H-...
> My wife has a computer that has a bad BIOS chip so it won't boot up.
> We're going to toss it but it has a secondary internal hard drive that she
> keeps all her data on (it's not a SATA, it's the older version with the
> wide ribbon cable). We need to get the data off that hard drive and onto
> our laptop. Since i can still power on the computer and get power to the
> HD, is there something i can buy to hook up the hard drive to a USB port
> on our laptop so i can copy all the files? If not, is there something
> else i can do to get the data off that hard drive?
>
> Fredd
>
>

There are several products on the market that will effectively convert that
HDD to USB so that you can get the files off of it. I have a product called
EZCONNECT. It consists of a power supply and an IDE converter that turns the
cabling you have into a USB, and it also has the needed cables for the
various connections. You simply power up the destination machine and connect
the source drive through the EXCONNECT, and the source drive appears in your
Windows Explorer as another drive. Form this point, it is merely a case of
file management to move from drive to drive.

PS
I doubt the BIOS has gone away on you. My guess is that you have lost the
boot sector on the HDD.

"Jeff Strickland" <> wrote in message
news:ik3fgb$fgi$...
>
> "Fredd Wright" <> wrote in message
> news:H-...
>> My wife has a computer that has a bad BIOS chip so it won't boot up.
>> We're going to toss it but it has a secondary internal hard drive that
>> she keeps all her data on (it's not a SATA, it's the older version with
>> the wide ribbon cable). We need to get the data off that hard drive and
>> onto our laptop. Since i can still power on the computer and get power
>> to the HD, is there something i can buy to hook up the hard drive to a
>> USB port on our laptop so i can copy all the files? If not, is there
>> something else i can do to get the data off that hard drive?
>>
>> Fredd
>>
>>
>
> There are several products on the market that will effectively convert
> that HDD to USB so that you can get the files off of it. I have a product
> called EZCONNECT. It consists of a power supply and an IDE converter that
> turns the cabling you have into a USB, and it also has the needed cables
> for the various connections. You simply power up the destination machine
> and connect the source drive through the EXCONNECT, and the source drive
> appears in your Windows Explorer as another drive. Form this point, it is
> merely a case of file management to move from drive to drive.
>
> PS
> I doubt the BIOS has gone away on you. My guess is that you have lost the
> boot sector on the HDD.
>
>
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I strongly recommend you go with Jeff's suggestion. It does exactly what
you describe you want.

I use a different brand (Rosewill), but the idea is exactly the same.

The old big ribbon cable is called IDE. The device comes with a USB
connector, a Power Supply, and the connector to IDE or SATA drives. Connect
the IDE drive, Power up, plug into the USB and - voila - your hard drive is
now for all intents and purposes the same as a flash drive.

It doesn't get much simpler.