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Switching internal HD to external?

P

Pegi

Limp Gawd
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Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
259
The 9-year-old OPC has finally given up the ghost. I thought I would pull the internal WD Velociraptor and wondered if it could be used as an external drive? How would I make it an external drive...use an enclosure? This is not something I've done before and I'm unsure which enclosure I need to buy. Can anyone help with choosing this?

Also, as a secondary question, once I pull the hard drive out of this machine, how do I dispose of the machine itself? It's a big machine...that large Coolermaster Stacker case!
 
On a normal drive? Buy an enclosure and slap it in there. For a velociraptor? Not recommended at all, those drives are heat monsters, it'll bake itself in any normal enclosure. Your best bet would be to see if you can find a 3.5" enclosure with a fan.

As to disposing of it, is there a Best Buy nearby? They'll take old computers for recycling but they won't take HDD's. If not then look around, there's bound to be someplace that'll take eWaste to be recycled.
 
FnordMan said:
On a normal drive? Buy an enclosure and slap it in there. For a velociraptor? Not recommended at all, those drives are heat monsters, it'll bake itself in any normal enclosure. Your best bet would be to see if you can find a 3.5" enclosure with a fan.

As to disposing of it, is there a Best Buy nearby? They'll take old computers for recycling but they won't take HDD's. If not then look around, there's bound to be someplace that'll take eWaste to be recycled.
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking...BestBuy computer recycling is limited to 3 items per customer per day IIRC...If anyone is watching.
 
Thanks, guys, for the Best Buy recommendation. I had no idea they took old computers. They don't charge, do they?

As for the Velociraptor, I guess I mostly just wanted to check what's on it more than actually USE it. For all I know, it might well be dead in the water, as well. I guess if I just drill a hole in it, that will effectively kill it? Any special disposal? Would that need a hazmat disposal or can it just be thrown away?
 
Drilling the drive will make it unreadable, so that's all you need to do to dispose of it. At work we toss them into the dumpster after they are drilled.

In addition to the heat, that drive will draw more power than most enclosures can supply. If you want to see what is on it, just add it as a secondary drive into a newer working desktop. You can also boot a PC using a live Linux image and read it that way if you are worried about accessing it from a windows installation.
 
Thanks much, doublejack, that's exactly what I did...temporarily added it onto an existing windows pc just to get what I needed and then removed it. Worked perfectly. Appreciate the help.
 
Some cities will do collection of old stuff to recycle once or twice a year. I donated old PC parts and cables and junk to my city's recycling place when they did it last year. They had a hard drive crusher, but I have one at work we use for hard drives, so I didn't see a need to use theirs. Some Goodwills have PC recycling too. The one in my city takes old junk and you could get tax write off.
 
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