motherboard died on HP dv9000 laptop need to retrive data from hard drive

Just hook the HD up to another vista machine and you shoudl be able to read the contents without a problem as long as you didn't encrypt it.

As mentioned, either hook it  up as slave or use a USB adapter to handle it externally.

I have used the SABRENT adapter and it works fine and handles all types of drives.



I hope this helps !

Whatever happens with the new motherboard want to be sure that I have it backed up. Had similar devices before it worked fine for a while, then it fried 2 hard drives. It was quite painful so would not take chance in using these cheapies again. Unless its proper brand name.
I presume that is the only way to connect laptops HD to a PC to upload data?
You are saying they wont have to reinstall OS after replacing motherboard is that right?

Yes, if they are only replacing motherboard, you drive will be the same as it as before it crashed. I would recomend buying Western Digital extarnal Drive that you can hook up to USB on a laptop and back up your files to protect yourself in the future. Another way to go is online backup stores, a lot of companies give out free space to store you files, i do not know how much you can trust them but there ones that charge you small fee per year but they gaurantee that it will be safe no matter what, both from hackers and disasters. so if u do not uploading your data to some site you can go that route. but the cheapest and efficient way to go is USB portable storage, cheap, efficient and not likely to crash (but they can lose data too)

I think I didn't make myself clear, sorry for that.
I have plenty of external storage what i'm looking for is a way to copy data from small hard drive from my dead laptop to another computer or external hard drive to back it up before repairs. I can't connect it to anything as laptops HD connection is different.