changing laptop hard disc

Right sorry if it's been covered already...(honestly I didn't really look that hard)

can I change the hard disc from a dead laptop to a new laptop? and what do I need to do, the old laptops motherboard has gone and its not backed up. Or is it possible to "read" the knackered laptop or H/Disc from a pc?

edit* there is no charge in the dead lappy

Both possible, second idea preferable

Best way is to get yourself a caddy, pull the disk out of the old laptop, put it in the caddy and you can then plug it into a USB port on the new laptop and copy your files across

does it matter about which operating system the new one uses..? ie the old one was the an old windows system (can't recall which version of hand, but it was about 3yrs old) rather than new fandango vista.

Short answer: you should have no problems reading a windows disk in Vista

thanks for that. I'm not to savvy when it comes to something that can't be fixed with a spanner or hammer..

If hitting it with a hammer don't fix it, then it's an electrical problem.

(should i back up the new lappy just in case? oh and a friend just asked me does it work backwards..vista to old windows xp?)

edit* Guessing that i might run the risk of lossing the somedata either way, due to the old lappy dieing.

If you are just copying files (music, documents, that sort of thing), then you don't need to back up your new laptop (though it's always a good idea to take regular backups of your stuff!

)

And XP might struggle to read a Vista partition, depending on how it's set up, but on the whole it should be able to.

since the old lappy died i wish i'd backed it up (did with the photo's not the music for some reason). So just to confirm...I can remove the hard-disc (little thing under the plate in the bottom of old lappy) plug into thingy-ma-jig from maplins...then it's read (now I'm assuming.....new device or removable disc kinda thing) and new lappy understands it and alls well. new lappy has old lappy's music/docs and pics.......no hammers or spanners involved just little screwdrivers?

Yup. When you plug the caddy (with disk from old laptop in it) into the new laptop, it will see it as a removable drive, whereby you can then browse, copy, delete etc to your hearts content!

thank you bud,
no need for the heavy stuff then! just need to fix sweary mary before i recover knackered lappy.....

trip to maplins added to the list.......