Re: bad excuse but inquiry

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

mag wrote:

> This is all great feedback, and I feel more comfortable venturing to do the
> big *switch*! Now if I can find a way to retrieve some of my data from my
> laptop hard drive, which I have been able to find and pull out, - but now
> what to do? I'd know what to do with a desktop.

Mimi,

Can you burn CDs on this laptop ? There are probably some other options that
aren't jumping out at me right now, but one that would make this a lot easier
is USB (preferably 2.0). Does your laptop have this ? That would be easier &
better than a Laplink sort of deal via the serial port, or a slow Parallel
connection to something like a Zip drive.

How much data are we talking about ? 50 Megs ? Gigs worth ?

The thing with USB connectivity is that it opens up the very convenient world
of external, portable "drive shells" (enclosures). You can take a DVD burner
or a hard drive (even the laptop variety), and make a portable burner or
portable hard drive yourself, for considerably lower cost than purchasing the
ready-made external version of said device. I have done just that -- for both
examples -- having good luck with the CoolMax CD-510 line of enclosures. These
are a bit larger and heavier than many others I've seen, but they are also more
rugged (all aluminum), with their own power switch and cooling fan. {It would
be a different model line for the much smaller laptop-sized hard drives.} Once
you have the burner or the hard-drive of your choice, the assembly is minimal
and quite simple.

The extra flexibility this arrangement offers, for archiving,| data transfer
etc. is just tremendous. You can do pretty much whatever you need to do,
shuttling between most any computers that have USB-2. Only where you have to
go between Macs and PCs would this get complicated.


Jordan