I guess I'm doomed...

My toshiba laptop of 3 years has finally broken… in a very expensive manner. The charger broke the metal prong off from inside the computer, and my battery was dead to begin with. Now, I can’t get any of my files off because my computer is dead, and to repair the computer would cost $150+. I was thinking about getting a new laptop anyway, but $150 is a little pricey to retrieve some files. Any suggestions?

If you have a desktop you can buy a cheap hdd enclosure. It would be less expensive… or borrow someones battery.

what’s an HDD enclosure?

Is there a way I can connect my laptop to my desktop and charge it through via a usb connection?

I doubt it because any charging I would assume goes through the now dead charger.

It should be possible to remove the laptop HDD (hard disk drive) and either have someone connect it as a slave HDD in their system and copy your data to DVD, etc. Or put it in an external enclosure (that provides power and connection) and attach it through a USB port to an existing system or to your new laptop as and when you get it and transfer the data you want.

Both of these options will be cheaper than the $150 but you will need a reasonably computer technically savvy friend to do this as much of the cost or the recovery is labour costs.