Converting an Internal Hard Drive to an External Drive

There are differences between internal hard drives and the external hard drive, but at the same time, the core components are the same. It is very possible to convert the internal hard drive to an external hard drive. It is also possible to go the other way as well.

The external hard drive has an external casing and a USB circuit board that converts IDE or SATA interfaces to USB interface allowing one to connect the hard drive to the computer. Internal hard drives do not have external casing but they have fans to control the temperature. That's the major difference. These days, it is common to find some large external hard drives with built-in fans.

It is easy to open up that external hard drive casing and place it inside the machine. Having said that, opening up an external USB drive makes your product warranty invalid, so you should only do it if you aren't concerned about the product warranty.

Converting an external hard drive to an internal hard drive has some drawbacks. For example, it will be slower than you would expect.

Also, you will have to worry about the interface as well. You must make sure that the drive has the interface for your computer before you open it. Many external hard drives use IDE and SATA interface. How to tell if an external hard drive uses a certain interface can be difficult without the product documentation that came with the device.

One possible use is if your external drive goes bad, you can remove the casing, install the drive into your computer, and then run disc recovery tools in an effort to salvage the data. You can also decide to leave it in the computer after that.

In addition, you can also salvage the internal hard drive of a computer as well. As an example, my HP laptop died and I had a lot of data on the internal hard drive so I salvaged it. What I did was simple. I purchased an external hard drive kit, fit it inside, and plugged it in to my desktop via USB.

Those are some simple tips to converting an internal hard drive into an external hard drive and vice versa. To convert an internal hard drive, you need an external hard drive kit. You shouldn't need any additional hardware when going from external to internal.

If you enjoyed this post, please Tweet or

-By Dominic

Web site and all contents © Copyright ComputerTooSlow.com 2011, All rights reserved. Apple Macbook Pro battery A1175