I'm lost without my content from my broken laptop and want to recover it.

The motherboard is gone on it, but I was told about adaptors that can fit a laptop hard drive to a PC.  I found this one at an online Canadian store, before I order anything I want to make sure it's going to work. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8200.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329310&CatId=470

I notice that the brackets are sold separately from the adaptor. However I am not looking to make that drive a permanent feature in my desktop, I just need to access the drive so I can copy the files from it.  Can I use this thing without a bracket?

In cases like that, I usually just get an enclosure such as this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817423003

This basically turns your laptop hard drive into an external one. These usually come with a USB cable with 3 plugs. Use the main plug on the hard drive enclosure and the long one on your computer. If the drive needs more power, use the extra plug for that. I've never had to do that though. I'm currently using that particular one I linked to, and Newegg is very respectable so you may want to look into that alternative.

I do have an external hard drive casing. Not sure if it would work with the laptop hard drive or not.  Currently there is a 20 gig desktop hard drive in there.

I live in Canada and need to have a Canadian distributor. Between currency exchange, border processing fees, duty and taxes, it's too expensive to order computer components from the USA.

Actually, I looked at your link again, and the price for the casing seems reasonable. I'll see if I can find a place in Canada that has something like that. It wouldn't be a bad idea to keep the hard drive and store my runtimes on it. I already have a 250 gig external drive, but it wouldn't hurt to have them stored on a second drive in case one fails

EDIT:

Will this casing work?

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1042924

Yup. I also own a Sabrent (not that model though). Works great!

Anyway, an advantage to using the casing is that you gain an external hard drive! :)

From your original post I got the impression you would just grab the files then discard the drive.

Quote - Yup. I also own a Sabrent (not that model though). Works great!

Anyway, an advantage to using the casing is that you gain an external hard drive! :)

From your original post I got the impression you would just grab the files then discard the drive.

Yeah, I wasn't going to discard it, just sell it off along with the other bits and pieces that work.

But now that you mentioned it, it would be prudent to keep the drive as an extra bit of storage "just in case." Can't have your files stored in too many places in order to prevent file loss :)