My Brother's Dell has a FireWire port. I guess we'll just find out if it
works.
Barring that, is there a USB Target Disk Mode?
You know, it would be convenient to have a Target Disk Mode (TDM) in USB. And I see no reason that couldn't have been arranged, since TDM existed for SCSI, long before USB was around. The main reason was probably because the USB1 that came with Macs until recently is rather slow for moving disk-fuls of data. I don't think the designers of TDM expected that many of us would use it as a simple and convenient form of "sneaker net", to just move a file or three from one 'puter to another. But that's exactly what I use it for.
Back to your problem: I'd suggest you just buy a small, inexpensive, portable enclosure for your 2.5" internal HD, put the drive in the enclosure, and then connect it to the next computer. This way you avoid any motherboard problems you may be having on the iBook, and can salvage the data.
Such enclosures are available as USB, Firewire, or combo. They can be bought from Other World Computing (eshop.macsales.com), New Egg (newegg.com), Computer Geeks (geeks.com), Cooler Express (coolerexpress.com), Wiebe Tech (wiebetech.com), and a number of other vendors. The one thing you want to be sure of before buying is that the 2.5" drive in your laptop will actually fit inside the enclosure--your iBook may have a 12mm high drive, but many of these enclosures will only accept 9mm high or thinner. For example, there is a $20 USB enclosure at newegg.com which I believe will accept the thicker drives, item #N82E16817146304. A combo enclosure is $39, item #N82E16817146027, but it doesn't say how thick a drive can be accomodated. I own one of the $25 dual firewire enclosures from Cooler Express (item #HD-227FW) and am very happy with it (I think it'll accpet 12mm high drives, too). Wiebe sells "docks", which are the firewire interface without the overshell, and can be useful for people who do a lot of drive-swapping--where a protective enclosure just gets in the way. They ain't cheap, though!
Good luck. --Jim.
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