How do I slave a HD between two portables?

[portable]

The WinXP died suddenly on my hp laptop (saying something about a corrupted file), leaving me with a HD which needs to be backed up before I reinstall..
The only idea I had was to slave the HD onto another laptop. Is this possible? Is there another way to do this?
Ideas will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.

 

[Luke Vader]

have you tried to network the laptop to another PC to see if you can access the HD from there?

 

[ekÆsine]

he would need an operating system to do that. since winXP is dead he must either install windows 2000 or XP over the previous OS since you most likely use NTFS or possibley there is a DOS program that allows tcp/ip file tranfers since norton ghost allows saving images through DOS over tcp/ip i would assume someone out there has such a program.

not sure if you can slave it to another laptop, i just assume there is only room to put 1 hard disk in a laptop. i don't even think laptops use a cable to connect hard disks so i dont see how you could put a 2nd disk on slave. this is just a guess, check to see what connections you have available for a hard disk on your laptop.

one very last option is to call up your laptop manufacturer and ask if the restore CD that came with the laptop has an option to restore your operating system right over the previous without replacing the whole partition.

i would think they would, i mean how else can you do it without losing data in case your winXP gets hosed, they would have thought about this situation i would think.

 

[portable]

Thanks for the help! managed to backup

drive C: eventually using a linux bootable CD ("knnopix") to override WinXP. We suspect the reason for the failure is a broken fan, which means the laptop heats up quickly. To avoid this over-heating while we copy the files, we shrink-wrapped the laptop and stuck it into the freezer for 15 minutes. We then kept cooling the laptop using a regular fan (holding the laptop over it was no fun..) while we copy the files as quickly as we can in small batches to a USB.