Can I connect two internal HDDs to a laptop?

[mackayc]

Maybe a silly question, but I'm trying to advise somebody who's having laptop problems and I'm not too familiar with laptops myself.

The laptop won't boot but could probably be made to do so. She has since picked up a 2nd hand laptop which she wants to transfer the data from the old one to. I had suggested three alternatives:

1. Re-install Windows on old laptop and transfer data through network.

2. Buy adapter for £5 to connect 2½" laptop HDD to desktop IDE cable.

3. Connect old laptop HDD as slave to new laptop.

Is option 3 viable, or do laptops generally only have a connector for one internal drive? I do not know what model the laptop is.

[Professur]

Option 2 is by far the most sensible. Option three ....... is possible, depending on the laptop. The odd pins on the 2.5" hd are for master/slave, but most laptops bios won't accept more than one drive per channel, default master. But ... the CD-rom is also IDE. All you need to do is to adapt the cdrom's interface to the standard 2.5" hd pinout. This was dead easy on old Toshiba portables. Near impossible on IBM.

[Shinma]

If feasible,
External HDD enclosure for the old laptop HDD,
Connect HDD enclosure to new laptop via USB 2.0/Firewire cable.

[Toolbox]

Here's what you need:

http://www.xpcgear.com/ue940motb.html

[mackayc]

Thanks for the replies. It's only for a one-off transfer so we're probably going to go with Option 2 from my first post.