Unscrew the shield that holds the hard drive in place.

Removing the Shield

Lift the shield which will show you the laptop harddrive.

Lifting out the harddrive and unplugging the cable.

To access the data on a desktop PC we are going to need a special connector called a “Hard Drive Converter”. These can also be called a “44 to 40 Pin IDE Converter” or a “2.5 HD to 3.5 HD Converter”

A Laptop to Desktop Harddrive Converter.

We now need to make the harddrive ready to be put into a desktop computer by setting the hard drives jumper to the correct setting. The harddrive jumpers are a set of four pins which are separate from the other pins.

If the desktop harddrive is set to Master, then set the laptop harddrive to Slave. If the desktop harddrive is set to Cable Select, set the laptop harddrive to Cable Select also.

Setting the jumpers

Plug the desktop computers IDE cable into the converter plug making sure the red stripe on the IDE cable is on the same side as the power cable. Then plug the converter into the laptop harddrive making sure that the power side is on the same side as the harddrive jumpers. Be very careful while doing this as it is very easy to bend pins on both the converter and the laptop hardrive.

Plugging it all in