laptop died

[Martyuk39]

The laptop had been threatening to take up smoking for quite some time, and last night it carried out its threat. The screen had basically snapped off and wires were visible, and then it started to smell of burning. So I've disconnected it from the mains and I'm writing it off. Although hopefully it's got some usable parts - the hard disk for example.

So my question is - is there a device (apart from another laptop!) that I can put the disk into in order to try and extract information from it? I don't want to spend a fortune, since of course the disk might also be fried anyway. And it's not mission-critical, although it'll take me an age to get to the stage where I was at in Extreme Blast Billiards.
Thanks
Martin

 

[acole1]

They make adapters from the Laptop HD pin # to a regular IDE pin #... let me see if I can find one online.

I know Frys has some.

Edit:
Here is one. 40-44 Adapter

 

[Martyuk39]

Looks good - thanks very much

 

[corkyg]

You can also use an external 2.5" drive case (USB2 or Firewire) and put that laptop drive in it and you can then access it from any computer without opening the main box.

 

[Skeeedunt]

Originally posted by: corkyg
You can also use an external 2.5" drive case (USB2 or Firewire) and put that laptop drive in it and you can then access it from any computer without opening the main box.

For instance $15 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145658

 

[Martyuk39]

Thanks - I bought the 2.5-IDE cable since it was only a couple of pounds. I'm going to run it as a primary drive, do a proper backup and then get a USB enclosure and use it as an external drive.

I wonder if there's any other salvageable parts in the fried laptop, assuming they aren't fried. It's an AJP D500P from the UK which is basically the same as the Clevo D500P. It's got a 2.8ghz desktop processor for a start. 512MB RAM. The battery must be worth something. I wonder if there's anything else worth keeping.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

optical?