Connecting PC to Notebook

paul_indo

Some background:

My friend is writing a book and the contents of the doc file have dissappeared.
I have used a data recvery program to retrieve some of it in the form of temp files off his USB stick.

The problem:

I want to connect his notebook to my PC to run the datarecovery on the hard drive, but I'm not sure what is the best way to do this.
I am using WinXP, he uses Win 2000.
When I do this for my friends PC's I just take out their hard drive and plug it in my PC, easy. But with the notebook I can't do that so what's an easy way to scan his drive from my PC?

Can I use a USB connection to do it?

I don't want to install any networking or other software on his notebook because that may write over the data we want to recover. So I need some way to do it without any fancy software setup.

Thanks in advance.

phoneix

i am using a USB connection to connect my pc to notebook and there is no problem up to now.

paul_indo

Yea but how do you set that up?

Do you have to create a network or can you "direct connect" it somehow?

phoneix

i connect with USB's and then create a new connection from the network folder (i am not sure if it is the true translation)

Animal

You would probably have a faster connection if you connected the two computers together using their LAN network cards (provided they both have one).

You need to use a "crossover cable" to connect the computers directly and you should get full 100Mbps transfer speed.

paul_indo

Thanks.

Both of these options sound useful for my situation.
I am not sure if my friend has a LAN card in his notebook.
But that just reminds me, I actually have an old PCI LAN card somewhere.
Now where is it????

(5 min of searching through all my draws)

Yea, here it is. A Xircom RealPort Ethernet 10/100 = Modem 56

I knew it would come in usefull one day, I haven't used it for 5 years. Hope it still works Very Happy

He's bringing his notebook over on Saturday and a few beers with it.
Guess I owe you two a couple. I'll email them to you, OK Laughing

toshlad

Ok, this is far too easy.

Just get yourself a USB to IDE cable

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35057&criteria=usb%20ide&doy=24m1 or one like this, they're not hard to get of the internet.

This comes with a converter so you can connect laptop drives too.

In WinXP you can just add this drive as an extra drive and use it to search and copy data off it to your HDD.

It's really that simple.

If you'd like step by step instructions on adding the USB connection as a new drive just PM me and let me know, I'd be happy to help.

I hope this helps.

paul_indo

Now that's a great idea. Thanks.

I think I've heard of that before. Only problem, it's hard to buy on the internet in Indonesia.
I think I know where I can get one though. I'll take a drive and try to get one tomorrow.

I guess it will just appear in explorer as another drive, like when you connect a camera or USB stick, right?

Guess I'll have to email you a couple of beers too.
Hope it's still cold when it gets there Smile

toshlad

If the drive does not appear in explorer straight away, try running compmgmt.msc from the run command.

This then shows you the computer management screen.

It might require you to assign it a drive letter.

If you need any help then just PM me.

I'm sure those beers will be fine Wink

I hope this helps.