Wanted: Advice from someone who knows about Macs

Hi,

A friend of mine has an old Macbook Pro that is broken. He dropped it while open and managed to snap the screen clean off the body. On top of that it now wont turn on.

Turns out he is more fussed about what was on the HD (work, memories etc.) than what is on the computer.

I mentioned using one of these...

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1394043/art/advance/bx-3706si-3-5-external-ha.html?srcid=867&key=ZEosJ0FqPLfdINEuDztXAX9NQXsOFNPsGu5HYww9YE9xeREnbeXbLtAjBjQHUnxLRnYOCQ==

To take the hard drive out of the comp and download all of his stuff onto a new computer.

Is this possible and what size cradle would I need.

It was bought around 2006 and is among the last generation of Macbook Pros... the full silver one with a glossy screen and backlit keys. The screen size is 15'. It looks like this...

Any help much appreciated.

Jim

UTFG shows I need a 2.5" sata enclosure, sound right?

Yup it'll be a 2.5" drive, should work in theory, but never done it. Does it do anything at all when you try turn it on?

Don't think so, not seen it.

Told him to get one of them and good luck.

Cheers.

I use one of these for getting data off drives

http://www.maplin.co.uk/ide-sata-to-usb-2.0-48965

Yeah, apple use the same hardware as everyone else so as long as the actual harddrive works you should be able to connect up. You'll need to use a mac for the transferring of files due to compatibility, although I think there are programmes that will let you do it.

should be a 2.5 enclosure - look on youtube for videos of how to get the case open - if it's anything like my slightly newer macbook pro you'll need torx / star keys (0.8 and 0.9mm from memory) as well as a small phillips screwdriver. It's simple enough to do and then the drive, when plugged into an enclosure will / should mount easily enough onto another mac (providing it's not been knackered when it was dropped). My USB enclosure cost about £9 from ebuyer.

OSX has the ability to import users from external disks / other macs in which case it'd just be a simple transfer across (Migration Assistant I think it's called, should come as standard.