Making an external case for an internal hard drive
 

Hey,

Basically, I'd like another hard drive for myself. I've read a few stories on the net about people buying internal hard drives and making a case for them, so they're external. Since I have a laptop, an external hard drive would best suit me. I am hesitant though to shell out a bit more cash for an external hard drive.
So, I'm willing to build a case for with an internal one. Anyone ever try this before ? What's your success doing this ?

The reason I'm doing this, is well, I miss linux on iBook and I don't want to mess with my hard drive on the notebook. I would install linux on the external hard drive (probably ubuntu or Debian, PPC editions). Could I run another OS from an external hard drive, I'm presuming I could, but I'm wondering about the speed limits of USB (2.0).

thanks,
keyshawn

I bought an external case, a Nexstar. I bought the small one that uses laptop drives. More expensive for the drive but its a lot smaller and easier to take w/ the laptop.

Is it difficult to put together? I have a 160 gig hard drive in a desk top with a fried mother board.

Buy one now. External 250gb Seagates are on sale at TigerDirect for $89.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...?EdpNo=1828384

AFAIC, that's rediculous. I've been meaning to get one but I'm lazy.

If you already have an internal ATA / IDE hard drive and would like to make it an external, here are your options:

1) Buy a ready-made IDE/ATA hard drive enclosure. Check newegg, tigerdirect, zipzoomfly for "3.5in hard drive enclosures". Very simple. Choose the best looking, best features, or cheapest. Whatever. You have a ton of choices. Quite frankly I'd stick with something cheap, but whatever.

2) Build your own enclosure using a USB-IDE interface and .. your own hand built enclosure :)

If you buy an enclosure, all you have to do its plug the hard drive into it, it couldn't be easier.

Looks like no one saying much about the second part of that question....

Some Computers will boot off of usb drives, seems most will not.
One of my desktops will, neither of my laptops will though...

Before investing much money if you have a usb memory stick try using it.

You can get drive enclosures for under $20 so not a big investment if you have a drive already. Its always nice to have an external drive with a laptop.

http://www.axshop.com/details.aspx/sku-1278/
http://www.xpcgear.com/ue350au2bl.html

I have odered stuff from axshop and never had a problem with them, don't know about xpcgear..