Data transfer from dead laptop

my laptop went kaput on me last month, i was referred to a place by Sony to get the data on my lapout out. Went over there today and they were going to take the hard drive from my Sony vaio and stick it into an external hard drive and charge me $200 for that.

just wondering whether is it possible to do this myself if i were to buy an external hard drive? and if so, how complex is it?

also, i plan to fix my laptop (new motherboard is required) at a later stage overseas and i got told by the place i went to today that once the hard drive of the sony vaio is removed and put into the external hard drive, it can't be put back in and i will need to get a new hard drive for the sony vaio. would this cause further complications when i take the sony vaio to be fixed at a later stage?

cheers

 

That's a fine load of misinformation you are being fed, assuming that all you do is to read your files off the hard drive.

Get yourself a compatible (PATA or SATA) 2.5" USB enclosure, put the HDD into it and copy your files. Then put the HDD back into the computer. I've done that plenty of times. When I upgrade my HDD (more capacity) the old one goes in an enclosure and is used for backups of essential files but isn't reformatted so I can, if need be, slot it back into the computer and boot from it.

However, Sony notebooks often aren't the best for easy removal of the HDD. Perhaps that's why the cost is so high.

John

 

yep basically since my laptop is dead, i just need to get the files out.

so i figure i would have to dismantle my laptop and identify the hard drive, embarrassing question but is it easily identifiable? i have never seen one before. HDDs of sony laptops aren't easy to remove... damn...

good to hear that once the hard drive has been removed from my laptop into the external hard drive, it can still be put back in. this was what i thought and was shocked to hear that i couldn't...

have to say the place i visited seemed rather enthusiastic to do my data transfer which i felt was somewhat dodgy.

 

Assuming that your notebook uses a standard 2.5" HDD, then it is 70mm wide, 100mm long and 9.5mm thick. Metal on one side and a circuit board on the other.

If you are lucky, then it will be under a cover on the bottom of the computer. However, Sony have a habit of burying them inside, in which case something in this thread might help. The HDD is often under the palm rest. If there's nothing helpful in that thread then I suggest you start a new thread in the Sony forum giving your model number and requesting help on HDD removal.

John

 

John Ratsey's speaking the gospel truth - even on the really difficult-to-open _Sony's this project is basically a piece of cake and there is no earthly reason why you should pay $200 (more than the cost of a new HDD, plus the external enclosure, plus cloning software to copy the old to the new verbatim) for someone to do this for you.

In terms of cracking open the _Sony, what model do you have? If, by any chance, you've got one of the original vaio PCG-Zxx variants, I can give you step-by-step since that's what I've got. I've cracked that thing open so many times now, I could probably do a hdd swap in less than 10 minutes in the dark.

Otherwise, you should try googling on your model number and the phrase "service manual" to see if you can get a copy of the service manual for your particular model. Also, while you're googling that, see if anyone else has posted a how-to-dismantle guide for your model.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, silly me; I forgot to mention that you should also check our very own _Sony forum here on NBR to see if anyone's got pointers on dismantling your particular model.