I have a 40gb seagate hdd momentus 4200.2 inside an mp3 player. It has recently started making a very quiet clicking sound so im hoping to remove it and then hook it up to my comp to see if i can recover any data. I have never removed a hard drive before so have uploaded pics so i can get some help. It has a brown ribbon attached that i cant seem to remove? it seems to be connected to what seems like a motherboard on the under side?

also when its finally removed, can i connect it to my laptop with a standard ide to usb connector? many thanks

Probably just a proprietary connector. Assuming it is not attached anywhere, did you try pulling on it?

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

If it is a 40GB more than likely it is an IDE drive and this is an attachment card to the IDE on the HDD. You can try to remove the complete attachment card on the IDE and leave the ribbon cable attached to the card. Be careful when doing this one becasue you can bend the pins on the HDD and then it is a pain to get them straight again. Normally you can pull the attachment card off straight forward but do not force it off on this one. Turn over your drive and see if you can see the pins for the IDE interface on this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini

If it is a 40GB more than likely it is an IDE drive and this is an attachment card to the IDE on the HDD. You can try to remove the complete attachment card on the IDE and leave the ribbon cable attached to the card. Be careful when doing this one becasue you can bend the pins on the HDD and then it is a pain to get them straight again. Normally you can pull the attachment card off straight forward but do not force it off on this one. Turn over your drive and see if you can see the pins for the IDE interface on this one.

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Iorana Haraharaini