How to Give an Old Hard Drive a New Life

It's much less expensive to replace a hard drive that's overfilled than it is to buy a new computer with a bigger hard drive. And who doesn't want to save money? Now, what to do with the old hard drive once you've installed the bigger one in the old computer? Give it a new life as an external storage device! Here is how.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A still working hard drive
• An enclosure

1. To use a hard drive as an external storage device you'll need to purchase an enclosure. The enclosure is a housing for the drive, so it can sit on your desktop. The enclosure allows you to connect the hard drive to your computer with a USB, FireWire or eSATA port.

2. Know whether you have a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch hard drive in order to select the proper enclosure.

3. Know what internal interface your computer has: IDE/ATA or SATA. You can find this information printed on the hard drive you are planning to reuse.

Tips & Warnings

• Enclosures can be purchased at electronics stores or from online sources such as newegg.com or tigerdirect.com (see links in Resources below). The prices as of this writing range from $10 to $90.

Resources

• NewEgg.com
• TigerDirect.com

[maryanne09]

on 10/9/2009 Great tips on How to Give an Old Hard Drive a New Life! 5*'s :o)