Hi Everyone,
I'm new to this forum and I wonder if someone can give me a little advice. I had an old Compaq laptop that I used for almost 10 years. (XP Pro it was slow but worked perfectly) It finally crashed on me and I bought a new ASUS with Windows 10. The IT guy at FRY's tried to transfer all my data from old to new and he told me he couldn't recover anything. I don't believe him. What would I need to do to at least try to recover my files off the old HD? I have no idea what cables etc I appreciate any kind of info you can pass this way. Thank you in advance.
JP
You would need an external hard drive enclosure. If it's really old, it would be IDE.
To expand on what TwistedMetal said.
If the drive is not what caused your old laptop to die then it can be put into a case and used as an external drive, connected to a USB port on your new laptop for example.
New external HD cases can be bought for peanuts, try amazon or your local computer shop.
With luck you should be able to pull your old files straight from it, if not then you would have to try some recovery software.
This article gives the basics of how to put your old HD in an external case:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/computers/tips-and-solutions/convert-old-hard-drive-external-unit