using old hard drive as external hard drive....?

It will work.

I did that with an old 150gb hard drive when I built my newest machine.

I bought an enclosure from Compusa (this one)

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/it...

and it works perfectly.

Windows XP will recognise most external USB hard drive enclosures. Just be warned though - many of these now rely on a double USB lead. One USB plug is for data, the other draws extra power for the drive. Sometimes these cause problems with computers whose USB controllers are unable to supply sufficient power. Also it means that you need to use two USB ports rather than just one - and laptops generally don't have all that many ports.

You may want to consider an enclosure that comes with a separate power supply which can be used as an alternative to the dual USB lead. Alternatively consider a powered USB hub.

It will work no problem. Just get the enclosure. It will be cheaper than buying a Complete external hard drive. And when the 10 gig goes bad you can just buy a new bigger hard drive and pop that into the enclosure.

Yes, you can use it, and it will work.

Really, though - for 10gb, it's not worth the bother.

Argos have some nice enclosures in their sale - buy one of those, instead. It'll only be 20 quid more, once you've factored in the enclosure for the existing drive. Plus, as it's a laptop (2.5inch) drive, it doesn't need external power.

Just buy a new external hard drive. The cost of the enclosure for your spare internal hard drive will be almost as much.

Purchase an external drive enclosure for a 3.5" IDE drive.

yeah you can use the Hard Drive as a external one. BUT, MAKE SURE YOUR PINS ON THE HARD DRIVE IS SET TO BE A SLAVE DRIVE!!!! IF IT'S SET AS THE MASTER DRIVE THEN YOU PC WILL GET CONFUSED AND TRY USING THE OPERATING SYSTEM ON YOUR HARD DRIVE YOUR PLUGGING IN!!!!! hope i helped! very important!!

Hi,

Yes it is possable, However you would have to format in fully so the is no OS on it, But i would recomend you spend a bit of money and get a bigger HD.

c.smith697@yahoo.co.uk

Yeah. Get a case and format the HD.

yes you are correct, you have to get an enclosure.

as long as your laptop has the proper usb (probably 2.0) or firewire ports, it will work fine.