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Old 12-17-19, 01:24 PM  
bzar
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sorta on topic: almost dead laptop - transferring files

ok, i need to move files from two old laptops.

laptop #1:
it turns on, but the battery stops charging at 10% capacity for some reason. i suspect the computer is heating up and for safety reasons, maybe it shuts off the charging process.

i bought a 1 terabyte external drive. a while back, but i wasn't using it effectively and probably need to start over. i keep reading on the web about getting an enclosure or docking station.

Santa also bought us a new laptop that we will be opening on Christmas.

questions for old laptop #1:
if you've done this before, how many terabyte external drives do i need to backup my data? the big files are videos (some are workout videos that i converted to mp4) and photos. i have often wondered how people store their mp4 downloads because they take up so much space. my videos are primarily family videos.

due to the battery refusing to charge above 10%, can i still copy files? or would i do it a few folders at a time? i keep it plugged in, and the laptop seems to function using the cord. i might be totally mistaken on this point too.

do i need an enclosure or docking station?

questions for old laptop #2:
i have an even older laptop (uses vista) that has files on it. problem is that the keyboard crapped out on us, so i hooked it up to wireless/USB keyboard. that worked fine for a while, but the laptop's original keyboard seems to have some "stuck" keys, and started overriding the wireless keyboard.

question: how can i get to the files on that laptop to transfer them to an external drive?
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Miyagi: Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important.
[walks away, still making circular motions with hands] ~ Pat Morita, The Karate Kid, 1984


disclosure: in the years 2002-2004 i had a professional relationship with a distributor of fitness videos; see profile.
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Old 12-17-19, 02:18 PM  
Judith L
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I've never had a laptop only desktops but each time a computer or just the HD died I removed the HD, got a powered enclosure for it (preferrably with a fan) and contrary to all indications and expectations the HD worked perfectly. I now have 5 HDs each in their enclosure (all from Rosewill) which still work perfectly -- even the oldest HD from 20 years ago. (Actually, one of the five HDs was bought as internal HDs are cheaper than external ones and I like using these powered enclosures with fans.)

If you go this route, you don't have to try to transfer files using a laptop with a dying battery. Just remove the HD put it into a powered enclosure (preferrably with a fan) and you can work with the HD as usual.

If you use a powered enclosure and if you use one with USB 2.0 (not 3.0) you have a chance that a TV with a USB port will recognize and work with it. I've only ever gotten TVs with a USB port and they will work with a flash drive up to 32GB or with a powered HDD up to 1TB. If you aren't going to try to connect the powered enclosure to a TV than USB 3.0 is the way to go, for the speed. It's not necessary to have a fan, and in fact the very last enclosure (Rosewill) I got was USB 3.0 without a fan.

Of course, everything I've written here refers to larger drives and perhaps is not at all applicable to smaller laptop drives. I don't know. BTW, I have an old Patriot Box which allows one to either insert a smaller HD inside, or to connect to a larger drive by a port. Perhaps the current media boxes allow the same thing?

In any case, you should remove and keep the HD from any laptop/desktop when getting rid of it.

Good luck.
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Old 12-17-19, 02:44 PM  
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Old 12-17-19, 09:41 PM  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bzar View Post
question: how can i get to the files on that laptop to transfer them to an external drive?

Firstly, it sounds like your battery is just crap*ing out which is why it won't charge past 10%. (If the laptop was actually overheating, it would shut itself down, not cap the battery charge.) As long as your laptop is plugged into an outlet, you don't even need the battery, so I'd just remove it. (Alternatively, if you were so inclined, you could just order a new battery.)


For what you want to do, a docking station is what you want. You can ACCESS the LT HD with the enclosure, but if you're looking to transfer files and have everything on one drive, a docking station is the way to go. I'd recommend that for both laptops.

To find out how much space you would need, just access the folders in which the files you want to back up are on and see how large they are. I can't even begin to imagine that a 1TB drive would not be more than enough to back up the files on BOTH laptops, but you can check the size of your folders to be sure.


Do you have a functioning computer in which to hook up the docking station?


If not, you CAN just hook up the external to your laptops and transfer files that way. I think it might take longer to do a direct transfer, but if you don't want to bother with the docking station, you could do it that way, as well. (Note that file transfers to external HDs always take longer than transferring between internal drives.)


Both laptops, from the info you provided, seem to be intact and capable of supporting the file transfers. The keyboard wouldn't be needed for the transfers, though, you'd need a functioning mouse/touch pad.

Hope that helps!
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Old 12-17-19, 09:43 PM  
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Old 12-17-19, 10:59 PM  
bzar
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Thanks Judith and Liz!

Quote:
Originally Posted by LizEMA View Post

To find out how much space you would need, just access the folders in which the files you want to back up are on and see how large they are. I can't even begin to imagine that a 1TB drive would not be more than enough to back up the files on BOTH laptops, but you can check the size of your folders to be sure.


Do you have a functioning computer in which to hook up the docking station?


If not, you CAN just hook up the external to your laptops and transfer files that way. I think it might take longer to do a direct transfer, but if you don't want to bother with the docking station, you could do it that way, as well. (Note that file transfers to external HDs always take longer than transferring between internal drives.)


Both laptops, from the info you provided, seem to be intact and capable of supporting the file transfers. The keyboard wouldn't be needed for the transfers, though, you'd need a functioning mouse/touch pad.

Hope that helps!
regarding 1 Terabyte, my Seagate said it was full when i tried to just copy "My Documents" which includes mp4's. it claimed i needed almost 1 more T of space! i went back to make sure there was nothing odd going on, like >1 backup. i was using a Cobian app to auto back up Mp4's and that was it - i had two backup sets on there, so i deleted the older one. it freed up 255,000 bytes. shrugging my shoulders here.

anyhoo, i did right click the properties on some of those files to see how much space, but you're right, i was hoping 1 T would be enough.

i have a laptop that can hookup to the docking station. docking station vs. enclosure sounds good since i don't intend on keeping the older laptops. as it is, the keys are getting old/sticky and many apps were superceded with newer versions.

on that second laptop with the bad keyboard, the reason the original keyboard began causing issues is that when i used the wireless keyboard, i would be typing, but the cursor would keep going to the "home" position and nothing from the wireless keyboard would register! it's so annoying! and the "beep" would go on because the "home" key was as if it was being pressed without any release.
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Miyagi: Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important.
[walks away, still making circular motions with hands] ~ Pat Morita, The Karate Kid, 1984


disclosure: in the years 2002-2004 i had a professional relationship with a distributor of fitness videos; see profile.
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Old 04-20-20, 08:06 PM  
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update:
after studying the issue, i've decided to move each of the 3 hard drives (2 from laptops, 1 from a desk top) to their own individual enclosure.

my co-worker recommended this enclosure based on the types of hard drives i have:
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Exter...7419312&sr=8-4

he also recommended using a network attached storage (NAS) to store home videos that we've stored on one of the hard drives.

If you save a lot of video downloads, do you save them to the cloud?
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Miyagi: Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important.
[walks away, still making circular motions with hands] ~ Pat Morita, The Karate Kid, 1984


disclosure: in the years 2002-2004 i had a professional relationship with a distributor of fitness videos; see profile.
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Old 04-20-20, 09:46 PM  
Judith L
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I never use the cloud. For anything. And I try to keep everything important on external hard drives, not left on my computer. Downloads are always mp4s and so don't take up much space unless you choose the very highest quality when that is available as on Vimeo.
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Old 02-21-21, 09:57 PM  
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Hi Judith (or anyone who uses enclosures),

i finally removed a hard drive from a very old HP Pavilion desk top. it's so old, there weren't any youtube videos to guide me on how to remove it, but i was able to look at several videos and figured out how to remove it.

Judith, i read your first reply in this thread, and back then, it was all foreign language to me, but i can now fully understand what you wrote. Rosewill brand was something i should have looked into, but since my friend recommended Sabrent, i got that.

i'm reading some of the reviews on Amazon and reviewers were mentioning "partitioning" which i think refers to the enclosure software being able to read what's on the older hard drive - is that correct? Judith, it sounded like you were able to plug and play, but now i'm wondering if i need to first make sure that my chosen enclosure brand needs to have the latest updates on the laptop that i plan to plug this enclosure into? does that sound right?

i'm reading people's reviews that they almost accidentally re-initialized the drive without first downloading the latest version of the Sabrent app. i might be saying all of this wrong, but here's where i read it on an Amazon review:
https://www.amazon.com/product-revie...ews-filter-bar

read reviewer "S. Fields" one-star review.
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Miyagi: Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important.
[walks away, still making circular motions with hands] ~ Pat Morita, The Karate Kid, 1984


disclosure: in the years 2002-2004 i had a professional relationship with a distributor of fitness videos; see profile.
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Old 02-21-21, 11:36 PM  
Judith L
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An enclosure is simply a case to hold a HDD or SSD. There is no software involved. Portable HDDs/SSDs may come with some kind of software but I have never used it. In fact the first thing I do with a new HDD is to format it, erasing any software that may be on it, and making it compatible with my computer, be it a Mac or a Windows machine which use different file systems.

When you partition a disk, you are dividing it into completely independent sectors or drives, so that it is like having two or more separate HDDs combined into one.

Yes, when I've retrieved a hard drive from an old computer, I've simply placed it into an enclosure and plugged it in. Same with any "internal drive" I may buy, simply put it in an enclosure and plug it in.

For larger 3.5" drives I prefer the Roswill enclosures with fans -- the larger 3.5 mechanical drives need good ventilation, however with smaller 2.5" solid state drives I like a Sabrent enclosure.

The main thing is to be familiar with the different formats which are compatible with Macs and Windows machines and to remember that formatting necessarily involves erasing a drive of everything and anything on it. So if you want to keep the data on a retrieved drive, you need to plug it into a machine using the same file system (Windows or Mac), as that from which you retrieved your drive. Google is your friend here to learn about the different formats.

Hope that helps.
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