I want to connect a laptop 2.5" hard drive (the slave) to a desktop hard drive (the host). I can't boot up from my laptop drive so I'm gonna try to read off the drive using the desktop as the host. I placed an order for a special cable designed to connect these drives together. In the picture, it seems to have 2 plugs (one for the laptop drive and the other for the desktop drive), another plug (that goes into the desktop motherboard?), and another plug (power plug?). Right now, the only thing I'm certain about is where the first plug goes into - the laptop drive (sorry, I'm not hardware inclined ). Now where does the second plug go? I'm imagining that the socket on the desktop drive is already used to connect somehow with the CPU. Would I disconnect that wiring and connect the second plug into the desktop drive? And where is the socket on the motherboard (controller?) that the third plug goes into? And where/what does the power plug connect with? Thanks for assisting a n00b.

Oh, and on the cable, there are 2 same plugs (40 pin) and 1 (44 pin for laptop) plug. Does it matter which of the 2 40 pin plugs goes where?

 

Any links to this cable? What laptop are you using? Laptop drives are really small and the pins are very different from a desktop hard drive, so I doubt you will have difficulties figuring out where each cable goes. Have you tried using program like laplink (do they still make that) where you boot up in a DOS and transfer files from one laptop to pc through a serial cable?

 

A pic of the "Cable" would really help. Also you may look into getting an exteranl Hard Drive case for the laptop harddrive and then connect it to your Desktop.

 

I have never tried running a desktop drive off a laptop.

For running a laptop drive off a desktop, you can get a little converter at electronics stores for about $7. I connect laptop hard drives to desktops all the time. It's a 44 pin connector going to a 40 pin. The power is then seperate. Once you have your master and slave worked out, you just plug it in like any other hard drive.

You should have just a typical IDE cable. One end goes into the system board and the other two go to your drives. Then each drive will also need to be plugged into a power socket. The hard part you may have is figuring out the jumper settings on the laptop drive. Just make one slave and one master. If the desktop hard drive is what is running your Operating Syatems then make it master.