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The best thing to do with a Hard Disk Drive recovered from an old PC

If. like many people you've got several old PC's at home or work that are "past their sell by date" and are gathering dust in the corner then perhaps its time to strip our the hard disk drive from the PC, recover any useful data and then "breath new life" into the recovered Hard Drive by popping it into a Hard Disk Enclosure and creating a new handy back-up solition for yourself.

With the range of hard drive cases (often also referred to as Hard Drive Caddy's or Hard Drive Enclosures) its really simple to do. Irrespective of whether you are taking a Hard Disk Drive from a laptop PC, a Desktop PC or whether the Hard Disk is one of the older style IDE HDD's or a comparatively new SATA Hard Drive there is a Hard Disk Enclosure available for you.

Once you've removed the hard disk drive from the PC (desktop PC hard drives will normally be held in place by 4 screws to the side of the Hard Drive) just check on the label affixed to the top of the Hard Drive to determine if its an IDE or SATA type. IDE Hard Drives are pretty easy to spot as they have 2 rows of 20 pins wheras SATA Hard Disks just have two solid black connectors.

Having identified which size hard drive you have (2.5" hard drives come from latops and 3.5" hard disk drives from Desktops and Towers) and having determined if its a SATA or IDE Hard Drive you then simply need to choose the right size/type of Hard Disk Drive Enclosure. If you need help then USBNow has an excellent selection of Hard Drive Enclosures for all types and sizes of Hard Disk Drives.

Installation of the Hard Disk Drive in the Caddy should be pretty straight forward. Normally there will be a couple of screws on the Hard Disk Drive Enclosure that you'll have to remove to gain access to the internal compartment and connectors. Its then simply a case of  connecting the internal connectors (and in the case of 3.5" hard drives the internal power connector). using a couple of screws (supplied) to secure the Hard Drive in position inside the caddy and then re-sealing the unit.

With the Hard Drive safely installed in the Caddy then power up the unit (3.5" enclosures will come with a mains power adapter wheras 2.5" caddy's tend to draw all their power from the USB connection - handy as you don't need to take any power supply with you).

With power running to the Hard Drive enclosure you should be able to feel the hard disk spinning inside the case - this is a good sign as it suggests all is well. At this stage you can connect the HDD enclosure to your PC using the supplied USB leads (some Hard Drive Enclosures can also be connected via Firewire or eSATA but USB continues to be the most popular)

With the Hard Drive Enclosure powered up and connected to the PC you should get that comforting "ping" that your PC has recognised new hardware being connected. Give it a few seconds and then if all is well the Hard Drive will be allocated a drive letter by your PC and you'll then be able to see the contents of the Hard Disk just as you can do with your normal "C:" drive.

With all installed and working OK you can now use the Hard Drive inside the caddy to recover data from the installed hard disk drive and to copy and back up new data as well. If you're using a smaller 2.5" HDD inside an enclosure then you'll have the benefit of being to take the unit around with you because you'll have created your own portable back up solution.

So for relatively little cost and effort you can breath new life into a hard disk drive that in all likelihood was going to be scrapped.

About the Author

Phil is part of the team at USBNow. Launched in 2002 USBNow is a company that is committed to answers to people USB problems be this advice, support or products. Check us out at http://www.usbnow.co.uk

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