RE: bad excuse but inquiry

["mag" iamiriam@xxxxxxxx]

This I could do, even if laptop doesn't even power on???!! NOTHING, ziltch,
blank, DEAD!

I could do this with just a tiny little hard drive in hand??

If so, I'd be ecstatic!
Mimi

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of J. R. Fox
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 2:04 PM
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: bad excuse but inquiry

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