how can i transfer data from my tower to my laptop?

[staffy01]

hi guys, i have a really old computer tower that i need to retrieve some files from. i want to put these onto my laptop.

my main problem is that i do not have a monitor for the tower and i don't want to buy one to only use it once. i'm also unable to buy any hard drive connects (like USB to IDE or USB to SATA)

is it possible to connect the tower to my laptop using a USB cable or something, maybe a data transfer cable?

thankyou in advance,

 

[MauveCloud]

Perhaps you could explain why you're "unable to buy any hard drive connects"? Do you mean you don't have the budget for it at the moment, or that you can't find any? If the latter, that's probably because afaik they don't make any that just do USB to SATA, because you also need a way to provide power to the drive (and a controller to handle the differences between SATA and USB protocols), such as an enclosure like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182363

If it's a budget issue, you could ask a friend or family member if they could lend you a monitor (possibly at their house, by bringing the tower and laptop there) to connect the tower to temporarily, so you could transfer the files to a usb stick and then to the laptop.

I don't think you'll find a USB data transfer cable for connecting two computers together, since USB is for connecting peripherals to computers, not two computers together (a network cable is what you want for connecting two computers together), and even if you could, that would only work if you had file sharing enabled on the tower beforehand.

 

[staffy01]

Perhaps you could explain why you're "unable to buy any hard drive connects"? Do you mean you don't have the budget for it at the moment, or that you can't find any? If the latter, that's probably because afaik they don't make any that just do USB to SATA, because you also need a way to provide power to the drive (and a controller to handle the differences between SATA and USB protocols), such as an enclosure like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182363

If it's a budget issue, you could ask a friend or family member if they could lend you a monitor (possibly at their house, by bringing the tower and laptop there) to connect the tower to temporarily, so you could transfer the files to a usb stick and then to the laptop.

I don't think you'll find a USB data transfer cable for connecting two computers together, since USB is for connecting peripherals to computers, not two computers together (a network cable is what you want for connecting two computers together), and even if you could, that would only work if you had file sharing enabled on the tower beforehand.

it was the latter, i was unable to find them on the internet but he enclosure seems like a good idea. would you kindly explain how it works in further detail?

also, just for further knowledge in case i need it again, would an ethernet cable work? if i plugged it in to both LAN ports, or would i need a monitor for that?

 

[MauveCloud]

You attach the drive to power and data connectors in the enclosure (possibly close it up, though perhaps not critical if you're only doing this for a short time and a small amount of data), then connect an AC adapter to power it and USB cable to connect it to the laptop. After that, it acts as an external drive for the laptop, and as long as the drive wasn't encrypted, you can transfer files to the laptop's internal drive.

As far as the ethernet cable, plugging it into both LAN ports would only work if you had previously enabled file sharing on the tower (for security reasons, that generally isn't enabled by default). Otherwise, you would need a monitor so you could set that up.