Working in I.T. Support I have to think ahead and one problem I needed a solution for was Data recovery for laptop hard disks.

Now if a desktop PC’s hard disk fails you can usually just connect the faulty hard disk as another disk in a working system and recover the data.

However laptop hard disks due to their size cannot co-exist internally in another laptop or PC.

Picture: 2.5″ Laptop Hard Disk

For that you would  need an external USB hard disk enclosure with the correct connections either IDE or SATA.

So for my box of tricks I ordered an inexpensive (£15) Akasa P2 SERIES 2.5″ ESATA/USB EXT (see main picture).

So finally this week the call came in for a user of a Dell Latitude that had dropped the laptop and required their data recovered.

Once the laptop was in my hands I carefully removed the hard disk. In this example it was a SATA drive.

I plugged it into the Akasa hard disk enclosure and connected the supplied power and data cables and the faulty hard disk was now accessible.

Tip: Both the power and data run on USB so there is no external power issues to worry about.

Not only was I able to recover the data but I also ran some hard disk tools that fixed the corrupted operating system and the hard disk was back in working order back in the original laptop.

So £15 well spent.

The guys over at Notebook review have a Dell Inspiron 9 in for review with lots of pictures and commentary.

Something these guys do in their reviews is measure the heat temperature of laptops. They report that the Inspiron mini runs hot so the heat maps are really useful.

Overall the review is positive and worth a read for those interested in the mini.

Also on the link is a 4 minute video review

Link: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4578

This video is a good starter for anyone considering one of the new breed of mini laptops.

The video covers models from Acer, HP, Asus and MSI.

I was initially getting interested in these small form factor sub notebooks but the screen resolution is too much of a compromise for me.

I am waiting for Dell to release their 12 inch Dell Latitude e4200.

Most of my clients have Board Rooms and in those rooms are large displays connected to PC’s.

So there is always a need to be able to control a PC but also be cable free.

Three wireless technologies exist in this market :-

RF (Radio Frequency), Bluetooth and now 2.4Ghz Wireless.

RF is the oldest and least exciting, distance and line of sight plays a part.

I recently tried out the Wireless KeySonic Compact Keyboard with integrated Touch Pad (Model 540)

As the picture above shows it’s basically a laptop keyboard style and is ultra thin and light.

You use the supplied USB Dongle in an available USB socket on the PC and with zero configuration it just works.

The rage of 10m is equal to Bluetooth but much better than RF.

The build quality was pretty much what I expected from a Sub £30 product but saying that it looks and feels adequate for the task at hand.

This an entry level dual format HD reader it can read Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disks.

It ships with an OEM version of PowerDVD 7.3 capable of playing back both formats (if your PC meets the other spec requirements).

It requires a SATA connection and comes supplied with a SATA cable.

The drive is about 1″ longer at the back than other drives I have seen.

The drive was relatively quiet on playback.

This drive is a DVD burner but it can’t burn Blu Ray or HD-DVD so this is a reader only for those formats.

The cost is circa £70.

Summary

Having access to 3 digital formats DVD/HD-DVD and Blu Ray from a single drive makes this a great addition to an existing HTPC or Entertainment PC.

The cost of PowerDVD alone is about £25 so the bundle makes this really good value for money.

On a side note Cyberlink have removed HD-DVD support in PowerDVD 8.0 so this is your last chance to get  HD-DVD playback software.

Specs

Blu-ray Disc and HD Dvd-rom drive