Laptop damage

[dudeigothadbydell]

My laptop was involved in a violent accident, the screen is destroyed, keys are missing from the keypad, but it still powers up. The battery is okay, I read somewhere on here about a pigtail that I could use to try to connect to the hard drive and try to salvage all of my files and music. I would really appreciate any help in retrieving those files to my desktop.

I don't know that hard drive from laptop is working, I get the beeping signal which means the hard drive is not being recognized. It did not do that a couple of times, so I am not sure that hard drive is toast.

It is off of a Dell Inspiron 5100, its a Hitachi Travelpack 30G, 4200rpm 100ATA, thats all I can remember right now.

Would it work in another Dell? meaning if I got a "mule" laptop of similar model type (like an Inspiron 5160/6000)?

Thanks for the help, I am a beginner so please do blast me if I sound too naive.

The Dude

 

[suprasteve]

well there's 3.5 to 2.5 ide adaptors, you could use one of those if it's ide, I haven't done anything with sata laptop drives so I don't know if they are the same as their desktop counterparts or not. If the drive is okay you should be able to access the stuff on another computer assuming you get it all plugged in correctly and all. The only thing that might give you some problems would be the login password if you have one set, but there's things you can do about that too I'm sure

 

[LaptopExtreme]

Well since it was in an accident, it could be that the memory sticks or wireless PCI card is dislogged or loose. That's a symptom of loud beeps also. Try popping the panels and reseat those sticks, hook it up to an external monitor and try it out.