Will this work? Advice needed

[laundromatt]

hi everyone, here's the situation. a friend of mine has a T60. she hit/dropped it, and now it won't start up. she called IBM, and they told her that she would have to send it in, but it would take a while to get it back.

the question for you all is - can i take her hard drive out, put it in mine, and boot so that we can get to some of the files? she has a different model of T60 than i do. (product type 1953 v. 2623)

i'd just need it to start so that i can put some of the files from her hard drive onto an external usb drive. is there another way that would be easier? is there anything in the Rescue and Recovery workspace that might be of help?

it would be nice if i had a sata 2.5 to usb cable/case, or an ultrabay hard drive adapter, but neither are options at this moment.

thanks!

[marlinspike]

Tell you what, maybe I've just lived in a small town for too long, but if you'd be willing to pay me the cost of shipping, I'll send you (I'm guessing you'd want USPS overnight) my SATA ultrabay hard drive adapter. I don't know what shipping would cost...then again, you may not want to do this since round trip overnight shipping is probably ~$35

[laundromatt]

Tell you what, maybe I've just lived in a small town for too long, but if you'd be willing to pay me the cost of shipping, I'll send you (I'm guessing you'd want USPS overnight) my SATA ultrabay hard drive adapter. I don't know what shipping would cost...then again, you may not want to do this since round trip overnight shipping is probably ~$35

hey, that's mighty nice of you to offer, but she's going on a trip in a few days, so the file transfer would have to take place tomorrow.

to the general public - if i put in her hard drive into my thinkpad, booted off an external hd that i made bootable with rescue and recovery, will that allow me to access the hard drive to get at the files?

[RonS]

There are two general scenarios:

1. If she has no HD password set, you're good to go. You can either install her HD in your system and boot, put her HD in an external enclosure and read from USB, or put her HD in a SlimBay caddy and read as a second HD. If you boot from her HD, I recommend that you boot into Safe Mode (Press F8 during boot) to prevent PNP from enumerating your slightly-different device suite onto her HD. But either way, you'll be able to to get at her files with no problems.

2. If she has a HD password set, you won't be able to read her HD on your system unless is mounted as the primary or secondary drive. You won't be able to put her HD in an external enclosure.

When she sends her system in for repair, many people recommend that she NOT send her hard drive in with the system. Just pull it out. If you send the system in, EasyServ will probably slick it and make it factory anyway.

[rbsrao79]

This may be a little late, but given that you're in SFO, you can go to a near by tronics store (compusa, frys, bestbuy etc) and get a 2.5" enclosure for some 20 bucks. If the hdd is < 7200 rpm then it doesn't even need an externally powered enclosure.

You can then attach the drive via usb.

Rajeev

[tomh009]

hi everyone, here's the situation. a friend of mine has a T60. she hit/dropped it, and now it won't start up. she called IBM, and they told her that she would have to send it in, but it would take a while to get it back.

the question for you all is - can i take her hard drive out, put it in mine, and boot so that we can get to some of the files? she has a different model of T60 than i do. (product type 1953 v. 2623)

I second the USB housing suggestion -- once you have a housing in hand, it should take you no more than about half an hour to remove the drive from her ThinkPad and to insert it into the external USB housing.

Beware, though, that if she broke something in dropping the system, it may well be the hard drive.