[SOLVED] What adaptor type is this ide hard drive
 

Hello,

I took out the hard drive from my broken non-working dell inspiron 9200 laptop.

The hard drive appears to be a hot swappable type of a male connector of some sort but I'm not certain.

I want to connect this hard drive externally via a usb hard drive enclosure.

If you know what connector is this, what 2.5 ide enclosure or adaptor/convertor would I need? Thanks a bunch

This looks like a simple adapter that can (carefully) be pulled of the disk, so that you get the standard 2.5" IDE connectors, I have seen those in quite a bunch of laptops.

Having said that, not a Linux question, so moved to non-*NIX/General.

Hi there,

you've got every reason not to be certain. Judging from the number of contacts, I'd assume this is a plain ordinary IDE drive with the laptop's adapter still attached to the 44pin IDE connector, and IDE has never been hot-swappable. Can you try to gently pull away that adapter, without using too much force? Maybe you have to pry sideways a bit, but be careful not to bend the connector pins.

I assume that once you get it off, you'll find a standard 44pin 2.0mm-grid connector, and you can use any off-the-shelf USB/IDE enclosure. These are available at about 5 Euros and up (don't know about availability and pricing outside Germany) from mail-order shops, and start at about 10..15 Euros in retail stores.

Just to be sure: Can you read the exact drive type on the label? That would allow to look for details in a data sheet.

[X] Doc CPU

Agreed. Looks like your ordinary 2.5" laptop drive with the same adapter that most HP, Dell, IBM amongst others used for years.

Unscrew the side screws, if there, in the caddy (I can see it) and slide the drive back gently with a screw driver. It will un-plug itself from the caddy and you will see a totally different plug in interface. Those ide hard drives pin layouts are pretty much all the same. It is the caddies that are proprietary.

It is when you get into zif interfaces that stuff gets weird.

Thanks to all who reply :)

BTW, those of you who said the adapter was covering the ide 44 pins are correct. I used a needle nose pliers and gently lift off the male connector from side to side to reveal the 44 pins.