[SOLVED] I bricked my laptop so I need to transfer the storage's data to a very old pc before I RMA the laptop. I need help

[illidan1999]

This site is probably my best shot of getting help so I'll start here. Long story short, I can't make my Asus laptop boot and I will RMA it. I read that Asus might delete my data and since I don't have backup of my files, I'm looking for a way to transfer them to an HDD before I send it. I've researched a lot in the past 5 days but I'm still open to suggestions besides the one I'm about to describe. I have an 11 year old desktop with an Asus P5KPL-CM motherboard which doesn't have UEFI or AHCI bios. The laptop is FX505DT-BQ051T and its storage device is an M.2 NVMe Intel 660p SSD 512GB with 480GB being used. Yesterday I found out that I could use an M.2 adapter to transfer files but today I learned that my bios doesn't support UEFI or AHCI and that it won't be able to access the files. I read about a dozen of threads and some said that to to boot windows from an NVMe, UEFI or AHCI is necessary. Others said that UEFI/AHCI is needed for the NVMe drivers to work or something like that (which sounded troublesome). I don't need to boot windows, I just need it as a storage device but I can't find a thread about this (making the NVMe recognized as storage, not the boot drive). My OS version on my this old desktop is Windows 7 SP1. I just want to access my files on the NVMe and transfer them on another HDD (which I will buy as well). If there wasn't a lockdown I could go to a store and ask them to make backups, but no store will be open in my country till 1 week from today.

My motherboard only has one x16 PCIE for the M.2 adapter to connect to so I thought of an idea to remove the dedicated gpu from that slot and hope my integrated gpu still works. Otherwise I would go with an SSD enclosure and use my USB-A 2.0 ports.
That's if my system could recognize the SSD in the first place.

Any suggestions (or similar threads to read)?

 

[rgd1101]

did the laptop came with the intel 660p? if not, put the orignal m.2 back in to the laptop

 

[USAFRet]

Do NOT try to boot from that drive in a different system.

Get an external adapter and copy your personal data that way.

 

[illidan1999]

did the laptop came with the intel 660p? if not, put the orignal m.2 back in to the laptop

Yes, the laptop came with the intel 660p. I still have it inside the laptop to keep it secure.

Do NOT try to boot from that drive in a different system.

Get an external adapter and copy your personal data that way.

Ah, marvelous. So an adapter will work just fine and bios doesn't matter to access the files? That would be very good. An enclosure is quite more expensive than an adapter so, yeah, I think I'll go with a cheap adapter. Thank you.

Bit off-topic question, what does "boot" mean specifically? I've had trouble understanding this term the past two days. Does it mean when I start windows with that device, so "booting the device"? Or even when I use it as secondary/third (etc.) storage device? I'm not trying to start windows from the SSD. Are those two the same thing for the system? I want to boot normally from my old HDD with windows 7 inside, access the SSD's files and copy them to a second HDD while I leave windows 10 inside the SSD untouched.

 

[USAFRet]

Bit off-topic question, what does "boot" mean specifically? I've had trouble understanding this term the past two days. Does it mean when I start windows with that device, so "booting the device"? Or even when I use it as secondary/third (etc.) storage device? I'm not trying to start windows from the SSD. Are those two the same thing for the system? I want to boot normally from my old HDD with windows 7 inside, access the SSD's files and copy them to a second HDD while I leave windows 10 inside the SSD untouched.

Yes.
Using the Windows that exists on that particular storage device.

A system having multiple drives is no problem. Mine has 7.

System A and System B. Each with their own copy of windows (whatever version).
Trying to use the drive from System B to start up (boot) System A generally fails.

 

[illidan1999]

Yes.
Using the Windows that exists on that particular storage device.

A system having multiple drives is no problem. Mine has 7.

System A and System B. Each with their own copy of windows (whatever version).
Trying to use the drive from System B to start up (boot) System A generally fails.

Thank you for the quick help. I understand the concept of booting better now. Just to be sure, in case the x4 adapter to the gpu's x16 lane doesn't work, will an SSD enclosure connected to a USB type-A 2.0 port be recognized and work all the same? If it does, is it alright if it's type-C (enclosure) to type-A (desktop) ?