Vista - accessing hard drive from another computer...

I have a laptop with windows XP on it and windows failed to load on me one
day...so now I have a new laptop because we couldn't figure out what was
wrong with it. There was no indication that the hard drive was damaged, so I
was told I could access the hard drive on my old laptop by using a 2 way USB
cord and plug it into another, working computer. It would then act just like
an external hard drive. Only when I did this, nothing happened. I thought
maybe the old laptop had to be turned on for it to work, but when I tried the
same thing with my home computer, which was on, it didn't work either. Does
anybody know what's wrong or how else to access the hard drive from my old
laptop?
thanks.
-Camille

The hard drive needs to be in a working computer.
Another option is to temporarily place the laptop hard drive in a desktop
computer.
This little tool can help:
http://www.startech.com/Product/Item...d=IDE4044&c=CA

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


"CMKUbLU304" <CMKUbLU304@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:95304F34-6F65-4AC1-9DD4-B3BD5EDB9FE6@microsoft.com...
>I have a laptop with windows XP on it and windows failed to load on me one
> day...so now I have a new laptop because we couldn't figure out what was
> wrong with it. There was no indication that the hard drive was damaged, so
> I
> was told I could access the hard drive on my old laptop by using a 2 way
> USB
> cord and plug it into another, working computer. It would then act just
> like
> an external hard drive. Only when I did this, nothing happened. I thought
> maybe the old laptop had to be turned on for it to work, but when I tried
> the
> same thing with my home computer, which was on, it didn't work either.
> Does
> anybody know what's wrong or how else to access the hard drive from my old
> laptop?
> thanks.
> -Camille