A relative has been finding mixed reports on this.

He's been told laptop hard drives run at 5V and desktop hard drives run at 12V (we're talking about a 120GB SATA drive here from a small netbook that recently died)

Some have said the desktop will fry the hard drive, some have supported this by saying they've had a HD fried but personally I've never known it happen and this laptop HD contains college coursework that really needs to be recovered.

Is anyone able to say for certain that plugging this 2.5" 120GB SATA drive into a desktop will be safe?

I've plugged loads of 2.5' drives into desktops using sata connections to recover data no problem.

I would assume that the hard drive will only draw the power it requires Zeb, I too have plugged a lappy hard drive into my Computer to recover Data.

I would be of the opinion that the 2.5" drive would not have any of the 12V pins in the connector connected to anything and only take the 5V for the 2.5"drive IF that was NOT the case then they would have a different connector. But if your worried get one of these units. I am because it covers all drives and I have a bunch to work on. it has a psu and it then plugs into your USB "good because you don't have to turn your comp off to fit"
Click to view attachment I pos will have this by this weekend and I have an old pata 2.5 that I can try as well

Same here, I never had a problem.

Mags showed one adapter, here is the one I use. You can get it from newegg, and you can find them on sale for around $20. With it you can access your drive and recover your data, just like any other drive in your system, the same as with Mags.

I've already got an IDE to USB adaptor but can't yet afford SATA to USB.

Thanks for the replies - I'll tell him to go ahead and plug it in :)

It works fine done it many a time :) Sata just use normal connections and for IDE you get a IDE cable that resizes to a 2.5 and works perfectly fine http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=28724

Are you planning to actually use this as an additional internal drive or are you just interested in recovering the data that it contains?

Depending on your plans for the drive after you have recovered the data, you might want to look into getting a small external case for the drive. They're essentially plug-and-play. You put your laptop drive in and you're ready to go. They connect via your USB port and function the same as a WD My Passport Essential (h**p://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=701).

I was just looking at one of these cases last week at Staples for around $35USD.

I've no idea if he plans to keep it or not. It's 120GB so he might do. I might have a spare carrying case lying around somewhere if he is. We've got a Maplin just down the road so I'll be popping in and seeing if the drive adaptors have come down in price much. Last time I went in there to buy one last year they were about £50 which was out of my range.

I use one of these which has a laptop hdd in it