quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:
Another stupid question, the 2.5 refers to the width of the plug in connector, correct?

Because the overall width of the hard drive is about 2 3/4” but the plug is narrower.

It probably refers to the internal platter width. All SATA drives will have the same interface. Look at my pic above. The 3.5 is at 7 o'clock, the 2.5 is at four and one. (The HDDs pictured at 7 and 4 are IDE, but they're physically the same size as their SATA counterparts.) SATA I,II,III interfaces are visually identical, regardless of the device they connect.

If 2.75" is your actual width, it's what's commonly called 2.5" vs 3.5". I know of no manufacturer that puts a 3.5" bay in a laptop anyway, so if you have a HD in the machine at all vice a memory-stick form of SSD, it's a sure bet 2.5" even without measuring it.

-- edited -- Too slow typing even when I can answer a question.

O.k. And off to Amazon. Need a wall mount for the new TV and a new blu-ray player anyhow as the old surround sound and DVD combo only has RCA jacks, yep, that old, about twenty plus years old so it’s time to replace.

Now to get rid of the twenty year plus old JVC 36” CRT tv…..

Slightly off topic, but if you really want to speed up that laptop, you should replace the 2.5" HDD with a SSD. They are dirt cheap now.

Here's a 1TB Samsung EVO 970 for $109.
Here's the same drive in a 500GB version for $59.
The EVO 970 is a fantastic drive to upgrade an older laptop that has an original SATA HDD.

If you don't like Samsung, the Crucial MX500 is an excellent choice.
$84.99 at Amazon. The 500GB version is only 52.99.

There's just no reason to even be fooling with a spinning platter HDD in a laptop anymore. One of these SSDs will make you feel like you got a new laptop. The process to install the SSD is no different than swapping the hard drives. If you are going to take the time, might as well do the upgrade now.

quote:

Toshiba Satellite L875D-S7332

Link to Laptop Specs

It states under storage 640 SATA so you want a cable/enclosure that works with SATA drives,

Your Toshiba Drive should be like this based on how you described it. at 2.5 inch SATA drive.

The enclosure should work.

Link to Drive

Understand that if your old drive is FUBAR, then nothing may work, however connecting it to a USB port as a drive after booting the machine on the internal drive is how you find out if you can see anything on the drive.

It may come up show you the data and you can copy it to another USB drive, your existing drive, whatever you like, or it may not come up at all...

for $11 it's an inexpensive way to find out.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Understand that if your old drive is FUBAR, then nothing may work, however connecting it to a USB port as a drive after booting the machine on the internal drive is how you find out if you can see anything on the drive.

Also try turning the drive in different orientations. Sometimes turning a failing drive on edge, or upside down, can get it to mount and get you enough time to get at your data.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Understand that if your old drive is FUBAR, then nothing may work, however connecting it to a USB port as a drive after booting the machine on the internal drive is how you find out if you can see anything on the drive.

If none of the do-it-yourself options work and the data is important enough, there are data recovery services that can sometimes still recover the data, but it's very expensive (hundreds to thousands of dollars).

Reread your original post and noticed that your hard drive, per your descrition, might not be dead but might have choked on the windows update. A logical problem instead of a hardware issue.

If this is the case, there should not be any problem accessing its contents unless you encrypted it.

Your W10 might be even salvageable but that’s another adventure and only after you have retrieved your data contents.

Also you should give us clues as to what programs you use so we can trll you where to expext to find the proper folders.

Your drive being a used one, did it gave any warnings that it was about to go TU or it could still be in working order but a logical mess’

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About all I used it for was photos, emails and surfing the Internet and paying bills.

Really no major sign but even before this last update it was getting slower and the fan wasn’t keeping the laptop very cool but it was working.

I am inclined to agree with you that it probably is a logical mess but I tried all the tricks I knew like defragmenter and clearing browser history, things like that, all to no avail.

I blame myself for the last Windows update fiasco, I kept delaying it and delaying it, was surfing the Internet and got distracted and the automatic update started. It locked up during that, the beginnings of the fiasco.

Do you have or can get a simple boot CD or USB flash drive and put back the damaged disk on the Tosh.

Maybe a simple inspection will tell you what you need to know.

I always keep a Hiren boot CD on a flash drive, it has all the tool required for a problem like this particular one and many more.
So, going back to the original setup once you can get any external boot option would be of great help for diagnosing.

Remember not to write to the drive.

It’s is absolutely normal for the computer to slow down after you use it. Otherwise how would they sell you new crap every now and then?

In the future, add ccleaner and privazer to your tools. Also Malwarebytes or Superantispyware. All free and trustworthy.

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If the windows install is from 2013, trying to save it is probably a waste of time.
If you have a 'fresh' HDD with windows, the plan to use that is solid. A SSD drive would be faster, but spending $50+ on an 8yo laptop isn't really cost effective.

Get a SATA enclosure. The transfer cables linked above will work too, but it sounds like you'll have a spare drive you can use as a backup, so an enclosure makes sense.

Boot on 'new' HDD. Plug in the old HDD to USB. You'll have a new disk, probably D: double click & there should be a 'User' folder, open that. Your pics/docs/downloads/music & other stuff should be in there, unless you saved them elsewhere. Copy them to C:/User/"shovelhead"/"appropriate folder" and you are back up & running.

Once you have every thing saved (double & triple check), right click on the new drive (D: or whatever it is, but NOT C and select "Format". Set it to defaults, then click start. Once done, you'll have a clean drive you can use as backup.

I'm willing to try and extract the data from it. I used to do this at work prior to retirements (4 months ago - yeah!). My email is in my profile.