Slightly stupid question . . .

[Darur]

Sorry, this is probably a "no duh" question, but I'm not sure if this will work. Can I use a regular PATA ribbon cable to connect an ATA-6 drive from a laptop to my desktop PC? I have a friend with an older notebook (XP Home with AMD Athlon XP mobile proc) with a hard drive on the verge of failure and he wants his files backed up before it all goes. The alternative is for me to pull everything off his drive one at a time with my flash drive which wouldn't be much fun.

Thanks in advance!

[Murdochs_mad]

No, in a word, laptop drives have 44 pins at a higher density than desktop drives, but there are converters available pretty cheap to, linky (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=44+to+40+pin&category0=). The usb ones are more versatile, as you don't have to take your pc apart, and they will work for 3.5" drives (with a power adapter) hope this helps

[Darur]

Ah snap, was afraid of that.

Many thanks!

[youngbuck]

I've used the IDE to Laptop coverter many times without a problem.