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Question

SATA II Controller

Feb 21, 2016 8:10AM PST

I need to find a laptop that will accept my hard drive from my 5 yo laptop. How can I determine whether my drive will fit into the body of a different machine before buying it? I don't want to set it up as an extra drive; I want to replace it temporarily with my old hdd.
I don't know much about the chromebook, but if possible, I would consider one of them - the price is the biggest issue.
Thanks in advance for whatever advice you can offer.
Daniel

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: hard drive
Feb 21, 2016 8:23AM PST

That's a strange request. Newer laptops don't boot from older disks with older OS'es, even if they physically fit (the usual 2.5" SATA disk will fit, presumably). What's the purpose of the whole operation?

Kees

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Hard drive
Feb 21, 2016 8:31AM PST

The drive is loaded with Ubuntu 14.04, and was set up exactly the way I needed when the motherboard failed. Nothing was backed up or documented; booting to it would give me time to transfer my data - as would making it a slave, but that option is far more expensive.

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Re: transfer data
Feb 21, 2016 10:29AM PST

Buy a $20 enclosure for a SATA (I assume) laptop hard drive, put the hard disk in it, and copy everything you need out (to another external disk) after booting into a recent Linux disk or stick.

When ready, and all your data is safe, repartition the external disk (if necessary) for use on Windows.

Kees

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Answer
This may be a time where ebay is the answer.
Feb 21, 2016 10:11AM PST

Get the exact make/model as what you had and slip the drive into the good laptop.