If you’re PC has failed and you need to recover data stored on the hard drive then don’t panic. Whether you’ve got a laptop or desktop PC its a relatively easy task to take the hard drive out – just make sure the power is off and the find out where the Hard Disk Drive is being housed. it normally held in place by a couple of screws to the side of the disk. You’ll have to pull off the interface connector from the end of it and in the case of the larger 3.5″ hard drives from a desktop or tower you’ll need to pull off the power connector.
Once you’ve done this you should have a bare bones hard disk drive with nothing attached to it. There will be a manufacturers label on the top of it that will tell you the brand (e.g. IBM, Hitachi etc.) and also tell you the storage capacity of the drive and whether its IDE/ATA/PATA or the newer SATA type of hard drive.
The easiest way to recover the data from the disk is with a USB to IDE/SATA cable kit because these kits work with any Hard Disk drive irrespective of make, type, size. For this reason they are really popular with IT techies, IT support staff and IT engineers because one of these kits can be a life-saver.
The kits come with all you need to power up the hard disk drive and connect it to your PC using USB. Once connected the hard disk drive just shows up as a new drive letter (e.g. E:) and you can then read/write to and from the disk.
The kits are on offer at the moment at only £15.95 and in 2009 they were the best selling product in the USBNow store
 |
USB 2.0 IDE & SATA Cable (with Power Supply) |
