How to recover documents from very old laptop?

if the laptop is pretty much shot but the hard drive data is still intact i would get one of those USB based hard drive enclosures that work with older hard drives, like...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817155701 ; my guess is that's something that should work as it's a USB 2.0 that works with 2.5" hard drives (i.e. Laptop drives) and is a IDE interface on the laptop drive itself. so once you get that you simply connect the laptop drive into that enclosure and then plug it into your computers USB port and then browse the files on it (like copy to your main computer etc if you want).

if you could remove the hard drive and take a picture of it chances are i would know whether that would work with the above thing i linked to but chances are it will. the hard drive, once removed, likely has a bunch of prongs on one end of it unlike modern drives which have the typical SATA connection as i think the IDE is what those were using prior to SATA which being your computer is old it's guaranteed not to have a SATA interface on it which those IDE ones are the only one i am aware of prior to SATA for laptop stuff.

so assuming i am right that link above should work as it will allow you to connect that Laptop drive into the enclosure and then plug it into a USB port to browse the data on the drive and then once you find the files your looking for you can copy them over to your main computer.

basically assuming all of what i said is right then that $7 item will likely be the easiest way to get the data from that old hard drive into a modern computer.

p.s. if you can use the laptop, like actually see what's going on on screen, AND you got a old floppy disc laying around, you could transfer the data to the floppy disc and then get one of those external floppy drives that work on a USB port. but like i say the USB hard drive thing above is what i would do as if i had to buy anything the hard drive route is what i would go with.

Now the laptop had a VGA slot but when I tried to link the laptop up to another screen, it failed to work.

if i recall correctly on those older laptops... there is a certain key you need to press on the keyboard (something like CTRL+*whatever is linked to the VGA thing which should be shown on keyboard i think*) to tell the laptop to use a external display device as i don't think it automatically works without doing that.

The document was written in Microsoft Word.

My current laptop is a Macbook Pro.

as for this... ill leave that on you for now. i would imagine you know someone who has a Windows (or Linux) etc based computer if worst came to worst?



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Thank you! That all sounds like very good information. As I said, I don't actually have the old laptop so it may be some time until I can try any of this so you may wake up to an imdb reply email in a couple of years from me again, but the USB thing seems like a very good start.

As for the VGA keyboard command, I'd never heard of that, so if that's something I can figure out, it should be easy enough for me to test.

Again, thanks for the help Slovak :)

so you may wake up to an imdb reply email in a couple of years from me again, but the USB thing seems like a very good start.

I see ;)

but that $7 USB thing is probably the all around simplest way to get data off that drive that i can think of and it's cheap enough so you don't have much to lose.

even if you get the laptop to display the text through your VGA port to a different monitor (and the like) you would still need a way to copy that data out of it so you can view it on a more modern computer and since that laptop, at least the one in the picture you showed me, only seems to have a Floppy drive and no USB port then you pretty much only got the Floppy disc option or, what i described, which is removing the hard drive from the laptop and installing it into a external hard drive enclosure so then it will work on a USB connection with modern computers.

but anyways, good luck and i might see you in a couple of years. but by then you might have to refresh my memory on the situation since i might not remember this conversation by then ;)

As for the VGA keyboard command, I'd never heard of that, so if that's something I can figure out, it should be easy enough for me to test.

I am not 100% sure on that keyboard thing but i think with the older laptops you had to do something (like pressing keys on the keyboard) to tell the laptop to use the external display port as i don't think it's automatic.

but yeah, my guess is you will be able to figure it out simply by looking at the keyboard on the laptop closely as i believe there should be something there to tell the laptop to use the external VGA port so it displays through there instead of the usual laptop screen.



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The easiest way would be to copy the old HDD to an external which has either FAT-32 or EXFAT file system, si it can be fully accessed on either PC or Mac.