HP nightmare about to begin, need seagate momentus HDD backup help

first off, thanks in advance for any help

i bought a dv6000 in oct. 2006 with the turion 64x2 at 2.0ghz, 2gb ram, and the 7200go nvidia runnin XP. i have had the same issues as everyone else starting with the good ol wireless card vanishing from device manager to a $1,250 brick right now. i used a wireless USB dongle so i wouldn't have to send it in for the integrated wireless card. at the moment the display doesn't turn on and i get 3 beeps at startup, 1 long beep and 2 short ones. i looked up this error code and it points in the direction of either video card failure or bad display connections. whatever...this is where my problem starts

they want me to send it in for service, fine. i removed the HDD planning to back it up and format. since they decided to use the seagate momentus i can NOT connect my hdd as an external to my desktop to backup and format the drive. the momentus HDD is a "serial at" drive and is not a regular SATA. so there is no usb adapter or anything i can use to connect this hdd to another system to wipe it out. i know that HP uses a special connector on this drive that is removeable. even so, i can not find a way to connect this drive to another pc. I REFUSE TO SEND IN MY HDD WITH PERSONAL DATA ON IT!!!!! view this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php?t-118093.html

not only do i have my personal stuff on there from stored email passwords, online banking and whatever, i also have confidential documents for work as well. this is mostly a work laptop that i play WoW with. there is no way in hell i will send in my HDD with my info to them so they can have my stuff for days possibly weeks. after numerous calls to HP they pretty much told me to screw myself. his exact words the last time i called were "i'm sorry but you have to send in your drive with your data, i can assure you our techs will recover the drive overwriting all your data as soon as they get it." so is this guy gonna sit there from India and make sure no one looks at my hdd at the U.S. service center? i had a dell before this HP and the drive was IDE, easy to hook up to a usb connecter and backup/format or ghost to another system with an external hdd.

so i'm stuck
i expect them to screw me on the repair as i have read numerous threads here and elsewhere of people complaining about HP service. i'd like to begin the nightmare process asap, but its come down to me throwing my personal information out there for whoever wants it.

my question, does anyone know how to hook up this particular drive to a usb adapter or something? its a seagate momentus "SERIAL AT DISC DRIVE" NOT serial ata.

thank you again for reading about my situation

 

The Momentus comes in 2 different form factors for hookup. It's either a Ultra ATA or a SATA. I think the serial at you described is a typo on the specs. I bet it should say Serial ATA and not Serial AT.

I would just get an external 2.5 SATA enclosure to back up your info and data.

Randy

 

the dv6000t uses SATA so ur drive is a SATA drive not anything else. does it not have a SATA connector like the one that desktop drives have? have u tried thsoe external enclosures?

 

i'm waiting on a SATA to usb adapter i ordered, i have a desktop with a SATA drive, i was under the impression that the SATA connection is the same on 3.5" and 2.5" drives. after checkin out the connectors on my desktop, i noticed they were quite different. i will reply when my 2.5" SATA to usb adapter comes in, thanks for the replies

also when i get home i will post the PN# of the drive

 

The SATA connectors are the same for desktop and notebook drives. I even used a Seagate 7200.1 notebook drive on my desktop for a while in my quest to build an ultra-quiet PC. (I went back to a Raptor.) Any USB to SATA adapter should work, or an external USB to SATA enclosure.

 

I have the same problem. Were you able to find a solution?
I bought a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and that didn't fit the HP laptop HDD. (same model number BTW. I have a DV6110CA)
I also purchased a USB encloser and it has the same setup the adapter had (read: also doesn't fit)
My laptop took a dump and I need my data!
Help!

 

It's ok, everyone has porn on their computer, they won't mind.

 

Unless you pull a Gary Glitter.

 

Lol. No, no child porn here, not even regular porn. I just want my school assignments so I don't have to do them all over again. I don't even care about passwords. Those can be changed from my desktop before I get my laptop serviced.

 

My laptop was picked up yesterday for repair. Before it was picked up I called both HP and company they have outsourced their warranty repair to. I asked them both if it was okay if I sent in my laptop without my hard drives in them, and they said yes.

I wasn't able to do backup since the screen was black and I don't want to lose the data on my harddrives.

So I encourage you all to REMOVE YOUR HARD DRIVES beforing sending in your laptop for repair, if it's not a software related matter.

 

I was considering doing that until I decided it would be difficult to tell if my problem is fixed without a HDD. I guess if it posts that's one step better than what it's doing now.
I have a friend with almost the exact same notebook (one model newer) so I'm going to put my HDD in his computer and save all my data.