External hard drive
 

So, I have a laptop that stopped charging, and it was my primary computer for over a year, so I had a lot of stuff on it. I decided I would try to hook it up to an external casing so I could access it via USB. No luck -- apparently the external casing wants me to format the drive to gain access to it. That is decidedly not useful, seeing as I want to keep all the data on it. Seeing as my laptop is pretty much dead, anyone have any ideas how I could gain access to the data on the drive?

Yeah, since it's still got all your OS data and everything on it, just slapping it in an external enclosure isn't going to work.

Do you have an AC adapter for your laptop? Most allow you to run off the AC adapter if the battery is dead, so why not just do that, buy a HD for your enclosure and then transfer the data to it?

Or better yet, buy a new battery :p

that's interesting... you can't access it externally? i've connected the root drive of many laptops to this external case several times without fail for the same reason: to pull data off it, usually because corrupted system files prevented the OS from booting up correctly. i wouldn't think the maker of the case would matter much, but which one are you using, and i could suggest the one i use once i get back home.

but yeah, as galen said, you should be able to run off the ac adapter for now anyway.

Try drive recovery tools like testdisk or suchlike if you cant get alternate power.

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear, but the laptop doesn't charge. I do have the AC adapter but it does not power the laptop anymore. I believe there is something wrong with the internal piece it plugs into. I've been quoted like $500-700 dollars for repairing it. I just don't want to spend that kind of money on the laptop, I could just put it toward a new one. But I would like to get the data off of the drive. The enclosure I tried to use was Transcend brand. I wouldn't mind trying the specific brand you mentioned that apparently lets you get the data off of it.

I think any enclosure will ask you to format it, you'll need a SW which can snoop into the drive, recognize the partitions/filesystems and reactivate them, or suck the data off. One such good SW is testdisk which I've used with successfull results (best thing is that it doesn't destroy data unless you specifically ask it to.)