Re-use old HDD's?

[croesxyqu 0]

Good day everyone,

so lately my motherboard has fried up and a whole what not so I'm upgrading my whole system. I'm gonna leave out my 2 hard drives (one 500gb one 320) since I'll be buying a 128 M.2 and a 1 TB drive for storage. Now i have some important files and documents still stored on my other 2 hard drives.

Now here comes the part where I need some help. Me being as cheap as possible and not wanting to buy a whole Hard Disk Enclosure was wondering if somehow i could somehow connect one of the drives to the power supply via a normal SATA power cable and buy a SATA to USB cable/adapter so I can just plug it in to my front I/O. I don't know if there's a more practical/cheap solution to this but since I don't live in the US and it takes well over a month for any sort of package to go through customs, I might as well just ask right?

Anyways please let me hear any positive or negative feedback tnx in advance

[jmdriskell 178]

Check out Amazon.  I bought a HD enclosure for about $20. 

I would also suggest you consider something other than a 128G drive for your system.  1 TB drives are available for around $50.

 

Jim Driskell

[croesxyqu 0]

@jmdriskell that's exactly the type of cost I'm trying to avoid. Buying a HDD enclosure of off amazon for $20 will for sure cost me about $40 with all the shipment and import tax I'l have to pay. It's why I asked if the alternative mentioned above will work or not

Also could you link me to an M.2 of that specification? I really wanted an SSD but I only have 1 hard drive slot so the only other option was to buy a M.2. I already ordered the parts but maybe I can still change it if it's not too late

 

edit: M.2 is boot drive only, if i wasn't clear enough

Edited August 21, 2018 by croesxyqu

[overspeed3 410]

If you want a really easy way to add a ton of storage, try My Book.  It's an external hard drive that I bought several years ago with 2 terabytes: All you need is a USB cable. and it's ready to go.  The new MY Books have 3 or more terabytes or more and probably have faster read/write abilities than mine, which is pretty fast as is.  Of course, there are now also other similar external hard drive brands you could look at... 

[croesxyqu 0]

@overspeed3 thanks for your reply but you're also not answering my question. Of course I can buy a hard disk enclosure which would spare me all the trouble like @jmdriskell advised, but I want to spare that cost. 

I have 2 used HDD's that have important files on them and I need a cheap and temporary alternative that I can use to copy all those files to my new 1 TB hard drive, which will be installed into my new system. I cannot use the system I currently have because the motherboard fried up. I already have an external hard drive.

I just need to get my files off those 2 HDD's without formatting them beforehand.

[Luke 782]

Why don't you plug them into the motherboard ports and power cables, copy the data off and then disconnect them?

Cheers!

 

[Jethro 65]

Hello xyqu,

Heres my simple and 0 cost approach. 

Hope I'm understanding what you have or want to do correctly. The simple solution will depend on whether you are reasonably confident opening each of the external enclosures and detaching the USB and power interface, thus converting the drive as standard SATA and power interface for (Internal use) SATA connected drives, I have done this many times on WD Passport and MyBook drives when their Power adaptors failed (the conversion was very simple and the data that was on each disk still available even a little faster than USB as they were then accessing the system bus via SATA 6G ports with direct access to the motherboard. The conversion itself is cost free, depending on whether you also have spare SATA Cables, or you need to purchase or have a friend that doesn't mind giving his unused cables.  
Since the 2 HDD's are currently USB connected external drives they can be stripped from their case to be converted for direct connection to internal SATA interface/cable and PSU power supply (Hopefully you will have 2 available power couplings and 2 available SATA ports, you may already have 2 spare SATA cables if you bought your MOBO separately (non retail system). 

Sounds complicated but its really not, it depends on your skill and usage needs, then once you have decided what to do with the data on each disk, you can also use these for internal storage and/or program installation.

[croesxyqu 0]

On 8/21/2018 at 7:13 PM, Luke said:

Why don't you plug them into the motherboard ports and power cables, copy the data off and then disconnect them?

I mean this is the most simple way to do it yes but if i remember correctly I would have to format the drives in Device Manager before I can utilize them in the system right?

 

@Jethro I also have a WD Passport which has been resting in my "old hardware and wires" box for about 2 years now since it failed. I could definitely use this method as a way of utilizing this drive again, since I also have some information on there I don't have anywhere else. So thanks for that :) .My 2 HDD's that I'm speaking of however, were already internal 3.5" drives, so converting them would not make sense.

If I could just connect and get into the drives without formatting them would be the great and i wouldn't have asked the main question at all.

[Luke 782]

8 hours ago, croesxyqu said:

I mean this is the most simple way to do it yes but if i remember correctly I would have to format the drives in Device Manager before I can utilize them in the system right?

No, why? I assume they are already formatted and usable, and you want to get the data off of them.

Cheers!

Luke

[martin-w 3,243]

Luke is correct. I've done this numerous times. Plug in SATA data and power to motherboard and ready to go. Zero cost.

 

I also have a cheap adapter you simply plug into hard drive that enables you to access the drove via usb.