How to Make External Hard Drive

Just got a new computer but wanna make use of the old one? The first thing you can pull out of the case is the hard drive. By buying a hard drive case (or sometimes called "external enclosure"), you will be able to easily assemble an external hard drive that functions exactly the same as something like Western Digital MyBook External Hard Drive (~ $100).

Here is my experience of making use of my old Maxtor 200G PATA hard drive.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 

   First of all, you need to figure out what size the hard drive is. Usually, desktop uses 3.5" hard drive, yet laptop uses 2.5". However, you'd better check if you're unsure. Remove the hard drive from your desktop case/laptop (remove 4 screws, 2 on each side, and unplug the two cables attached), and look at the label (as shown below). As the label indicates, this is a 3.5" hard drive and a 3.5" case will be needed.

2. Buy the 3.5" case. The price is around $20 - 40. The package should include the case, a power cord, and a USB cable.

3. 
   Figure 2

   Before connecting the hard drive to the case, you need to set the hard drive as "Master". Usually, your hard drive should come with a little metal pin called "jumper".
   
   For a "Master" hard drive, the jumper (in white color) should be placed as Figure 2 indicated.

4. 

   Connect the PATA (blue) and power (white) cables to the hard drive.
   
   Then just plug in the USB cable and the power cord, connect the USB cable to your computer and turn on the hard drive case. Your external hard drive should be recognized by your computer automatically (assume you're using Window XP or higher version)

Tips & Warnings

• Shaking your head and thinking: "an old hard drive doesn't worth buying a $20 - $40 case." ? How about this -- your 3.5" case usually can support an optical drive such as CD-RW and DVD-RW, which means you can also transform your old optical drive into a portable CD/DVD writer -- Does buying a case sound more attractive now?
• The jumper setting may be different from some hard drive. Please read the label on the hard drive carefully before placing the jumper.