For those following my tech problems (exciting stuff, I know), on the 2nd try I managed to get a functional 2.5" USB hard drive enclosure which is currently on good speaking terms with my computer, so I can get all the stuff I need off the hard drive before the computer goes to repairland.
It's actually quite a cool gadget. If you have an old laptop with a functioning disk drive, just pop it out and put it into one of these $20 or so gadgets and you have an instant little external drive for backups or whatever.
