Need Laptop Help

Ok I'm gonna make this short.. My friend's laptop is apprently dead, it's a Dell, pretty old. I'm wondering if there is someway to copy some files from the hard drive to a computer and burn it to a cd or something. Is this possible? The comp had Windows ME on it I believe....

 

What does dead mean? The laptop doesn't turn on at all? Or it dies after 5 mins?

If the laptop turns on, obviously you just network it and copy the files over.

If the laptop just won't do anything then you'll have to open it up and remove the hard drive. Once you have the HD, you can either install it in another laptop and then copy the files. Or you can go to a local computer store and buy a nice little converter. The converts cost about 10-20$ and they'll make it possible to plug a laptop HD into a normal IDE port on a desktop PC. Any half decent computer store should be able to provide you with the converter, although don't try future shop or something as you'll most likely confuse them (go to a computer specialty store).

 

Yeah, I've figured this out. Putting it in another laptop would be ideal, only prob is laptops will only except one hd won't they? Like i couldent have both drives in at the same time, making it pointless since it wouldent boot...?

 

Max, look for someone with a Gateway Solo (mine is a 9300), or later (9500?). They will take 2 harddrives and you can even tell BIOS which one to boot from. I would never own a laptop that will not take 2 hard drives. Can run 2 harddrives and CD/DVD at the same time, also. Bazza

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Also, I'm sort of assuming you have a desktop system. So what you can do is put it into another laptop, as the only drive, and then network that laptop to the desktop computer and copy the files off.

You don't even need to be able to boot into windows ME, since there is a good chance the config won't work for the other laptop. Simply install the drive and then you can use a live CD. You can make yourself a windows live CD or you could just download a copy of knoppix (knoppix is a legally free download). Whichever way you go just install the HD, boot off the live CD, then copy to a desktop computer and you're done.