Getting Information From Old Hard Drive

Joined
Apr 29, 2011
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Recently my old mac book died. The genius bar said that it would be 750$ for repairs and since it had been 5 years since I'd gotten the laptop, I opted to buy a new MacBook Pro. The problem is I have stuff on my old hard drive that I want to keep (mostly the pictures from my iphoto), so the genius bar took the hard drive out for me. So now I have the hard drive from my old laptop and I'm not sure how I get the information off of it.

I tried to look it up online and saw something about a hard drive caddy? I have no idea what these are/ how they work. Do you just put the hard drive inside of it and connect it with a usb chord? Are all of these compatible with the macbook hard drives and will it work with my new macbook pro?

Or could/should I just go to best buy or something to see if they could put it on a CD for me?

What are my options/how can I go about getting the information from the old hard drive onto my new laptop?

Thanks! :)
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
7,163
Reaction score
275
Points
83
Location
UK
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini i5 (2014 High Sierra), iPhone X, Apple Watch, iPad Pro 12.9, AppleTV (4)
I'd help to know if the drive is a SATA or PATA drive - I imagine it's SATA but need to be sure. It'll say on the label.

Once you know you just need a USB enclosure as you've mentioned. They'll pretty much all do the trick. I'm from the UK and not familiar with your local suppliers. Guessing at USA from the $ but I guess you could be from any number of countries that use the dollar.

Anyway (rambling again), here's an example of a SATA 2.5" enclosure:
Newegg.com - acomdata HDEXXUP-240 2.5" Black USB 2.0 Enclosure Kit

You just open it up slide the drive in, close it back up and connect the USB cable to your Mac. It'll just show up as an external drive. Very simple to do.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
A tool like this is indispensable in your tech tool bag.

With one of these you can connect any bare IDE, SATA, 2.5", 3.5" externally via USB to any computer.

Here's a fancier one from OWC.

One thing to note when using these on a notebook - it's best to plug in the power cable to your notebook.
 

pigoo3

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
44,210
Reaction score
1,418
Points
113
Location
U.S.
Your Mac's Specs
2017 15" MBP, 16gig ram, 1TB SSD, OS 10.15
A tool like this is indispensable in your tech tool bag.

With one of these you can connect any bare IDE, SATA, 2.5", 3.5" externally via USB to any computer.

Here's a fancier one from OWC.

One thing to note when using these on a notebook - it's best to plug in the power cable to your notebook.

I bought the kit from OWC a few months ago. A really really cool (like OWC says "Swiss Army Knife") for hard drives. I also find it really useful for "bulk" testing & formatting of loose hard drives (2.5" and 3.5" SATA & IDE).:)

- Nick
 

Slydude

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
17,596
Reaction score
1,072
Points
113
Location
North Louisiana, USA
Your Mac's Specs
M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
I had one of those and loved it until I knocked it off of the desk and broke something. I bought another one but it seems to be a bit temperamental. I have been using a Thermaltake ST0014U BlacX Duet Hard Drive Dock - 2-Bay 2.5/3.5 SATA to USB 2.0, eSATA at TigerDirect.com and love it. I might have found it a bit cheaper.

I settled on this over the gizmos the other guys suggested because I am a bit clumsy and have bent the connector pins on a drive before using the other devices. If you go with the device I linked to check the information carefully. I think the one I linked to is limited to 1TB SATA drives drives but there are others. I don't remember if any support PATA drives though.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top