HELP!!!

[TallFlyer]

So a question for those of you out there more capable in computers than I am:

I have a sinking suspicion that my laptop HD (a Toshiba) is dead. I start the beast, and the only thing I get to see is

A disk read error occured
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I do that, and all I get is the same error message over and over again. So yes, probably it's dead.

So my questions are two fold:

1. Can someone reccomend a brand of after market laptop drive to re-install? I'm assuming the process is simply installing the new drive and running the restore disks.

2. Knowing that no one can gaurantee anything, what are the odds that my old drive could be mounted on a desktop machine and data gotten off? Do I need a special IDE cable or something like that?

Thanks for all your help.......

 

[bigbadboblittle]

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2. Knowing that no one can gaurantee anything, what are the odds that my old drive could be mounted on a desktop machine and data gotten off? Do I need a special IDE cable or something like that?

Thanks for all your help.......

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you should be able to recover your files from the drive. My laptop decided to stop working earlier this year and I ended up buying a new computer after consulting many sources on the issue. I was able to get the data off my old hard drive though. Depending on the type of drive you have, there are connectors that you can buy (usually less than $20) that will allow you to connect your old hard drive to a desktop computer using the power and connector from something like a cd-rom drive. Anyways, here's the link to the connector that I bought: http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/ST-BRACKET25.htm?x=21&y=23

it looks like you can just call their customer support if you aren't sure whether this is the right adapter or not. It worked fine for my hard drive, which was an "IMB Travelstar ..blah blah" Anyways, hopefully you won't even have to use the connector. Best of luck