[6DereK6]

Hi, I'm new here obviously and I could use some education. Recently my Dell Latitude D600 would not load after a restart. The initial Dell screen would start up and when the second screen that shows windows loading (2000) it would not load and said there were bad dll files and the kernal could not start up? So Dell sent me a new hard drive and I went with XP pro this time. Here are my questions. Could I insert this 3.5 laptop hard drive into and external case and access the stored files on it? Also, does it matter that I'm using XP instead of windows 2000 if I can access them? And finally, will I be able to run any of the programs that are on this hard drive if I can get into it by making it external? If not, is there a way to transfer them to the new hard drive without the original install disks? Thanks in advance.

Derek

Edited by 6DereK6, 10 May 2005 - 08:15 AM.

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In theory, you 'should' be able to a previously internal hard drive working in an external hard drive case (complete with power supply and cables).

That said, never tried it with a laptop hard drive before - so check with the vendor of the external hard drive case - make sure it's complete with all cables. May need special adapters (internally) for hooking up to smaller laptop drive.

Next questions are easy - you won't have problems transferring files from one disc to another - it's immaterial what operating system was resident on your external drive.

Will it be a usb external device?

You won't be booting up from your old Win2000 disk, but you should get your files off of it.

You won't be able to use the software that was on it. You'll need the full installers to install the software on the new internal drive. Don't be tempted to use pirated software - it may be full of spyware etc..

If you can't afford legitimate software, give open source alternatives a try - e.g open office instead of Microsoft Office, available here:

www.openoffice.org

There's a wealth of quality software out there, not just from commercial vendors

Good luck - main advice, check with vendor of your external hard drive casing regarding fitting laptop drive

DaveB - LinuxWannabee

[linuxwannabee]

In theory, you 'should' be able to a previously internal hard drive working in an external hard drive case (complete with power supply and cables).

That said, never tried it with a laptop hard drive before - so check with the vendor of the external hard drive case - make sure it's complete with all cables. May need special adapters (internally) for hooking up to smaller laptop drive.

Next questions are easy - you won't have problems transferring files from one disc to another - it's immaterial what operating system was resident on your external drive.

Will it be a usb external device?

You won't be booting up from your old Win2000 disk, but you should get your files off of it.

You won't be able to use the software that was on it. You'll need the full installers to install the software on the new internal drive. Don't be tempted to use pirated software - it may be full of spyware etc..

If you can't afford legitimate software, give open source alternatives a try - e.g open office instead of Microsoft Office, available here:

www.openoffice.org

There's a wealth of quality software out there, not just from commercial vendors

Good luck - main advice, check with vendor of your external hard drive casing regarding fitting laptop drive

DaveB - LinuxWannabee

[6DereK6]

thank you. I'll give it a shot and let you know what I find out.