# Can you take the platter out of a hard drive and put it in a CD ROM?



## daniel-delarosa

There is a video on youtube showing a guy pulling the disk out of a hard drive and putting it in another computers cd rom to get the files off of it.  Can you do that?!  I have a hard drive out of my broke computer that I would like to get all of my family photos out of.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_xPHxddjTU&feature=related

this is what my other computer was doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc35JYaQeE0&feature=related


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## The_Other_One

WOW...  I didn't watch it all the way through, but no, it's completely fake.  Hard drives are magnetic, optical drives are just that...optical.  They work using completely different principles (in terms or reading data).


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## daniel-delarosa

Glad I didn't try it.  can I put my hard drive in another computer as a slave or something to get my files off of it?


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## The_Other_One

As long as the drive works at all (IE starts to boot) there's a good chance it'll still be accessable using another computer.  Give it a shot, no harm in trying.

Now, there IS harm in trying what you first asked.  ANY dust or particles on the hard drive platters will ruin them.  While it is possible to do a platter swap (moving the disks from a one drive to an identical one) it's very dangerous, risky, and shouldn't be done at home.


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## daniel-delarosa

I dont think IE tries to start.   Watch the second video, that is exactly what my computer is doing.


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## The_Other_One

No...  I mean IE as in example it(your computer) starts to boot


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## daniel-delarosa

OH, ok. lol   Ya it tries to.  I took the hd out and put it in my other computer, but it did the same thing.


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## mifhugmun

daniel-delarosa said:


> There is a video on youtube showing a guy pulling the disk out of a hard drive and putting it in another computers cd rom to get the files off of it.  Can you do that?!  I have a hard drive out of my broke computer that I would like to get all of my family photos out of.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_xPHxddjTU&feature=related
> 
> this is what my other computer was doing.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc35JYaQeE0&feature=related



I was going to mention that. I did a defrag the day after I installed the new drive, it took over 6 hours to complete but that seemed to change nothing in performance.


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## tyttebøvs

Of course you can take out the platter and put it in the cdrom drive. Obviously.


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## Bodaggit23

daniel-delarosa said:


> OH, ok. lol   Ya it tries to.  I took the hd out and put it in my other computer, but it did the same thing.



Don't try to boot off of it.

Put it in your other computer as a slave, as you suggested, then navigate to it to access your data.

If it won't boot in the computer it came out of, it certainly won't boot in another computer with different hardware.


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