Hi, My desktop pc has recently died on me, obviously I have data such as music, videos, photo's and documents on the hard drive. Is there anyway I can transfer the data on the hard drive without fitting my drive into another pc. Is there anything on the market that I can attached my pc's hard drive to, and connect to my laptop etc. The operating system on my hard drive is 80gb ide hard drive is vista. So sorry if the question sounds a bit thick, not sure what I can do, would appreciate some advice. Thanks

Your best bet is to purchase an IDE external USB enclosure. They are not very expensive. Remove the hard drive from the dead computer, put it into the enclosure and and plug it into the Laptops USB port. Something like this: http://www.usbnow.co.uk/External_HD... Stuart

What do you mean by "dead"? It *may* be something that can be easily fixed. Explain what the problem is & maybe one of us can help you to get it going again. As for the data transfer, the cheapest way to go would be to temporarily slave your HDD on another system. Why is it that you don't wanna do that? You don't have to "fit" it. All you have to do is open the case, unplug the cables from the optical drive & temporarily connect them to the HDD. After you transfer the data, then just put the cables back as they were. You'll most likely have to "take ownership": http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Thanks Stuart for the advice that sounds the most viable option for me if i cannot get my pc working again

Thanks jam for your reply, I have previously had advice from computing.net about my dead pc, i say dead as in that my bios, operating progam or dvd & floppy drives fail to start up. i have been informed that it could be my power supply or motherboard that is causing the problem I will have to see the report when take to be repaired. Once again thanks for your help