I have an external hard drive with a sata connection which keeps becomming disconnected, can I put the drive into my pc and use it as an internal hard drive?
2006-09-29 12:03:00 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
you will have to see if the hard drive is copatibe for your computer but if you used that as an internal one your current interal one will not be acces plus it involes opening up your computer and swiching them out. You may consider just buying better cabbles if will prob savee you time and money
2006-09-29 12:07:30 · answer #1 · answered by zerocool_lll 2 · 0⤊ 5⤋
It depends what sort of hard drive is actually inside the exernal enclosure. It is most likey connecting via USB or FireWire at the moment but the drive that is actually inside the enclosure minus is power and USB bits will probably be a standard style hard drive.
Some of them [enclosures] are really slim which are usually laptop hard drives. If it is quite a big block - about 6"x4" (the external case) it most likey houses whats called an "IDE" or "SATA" hard drive (same thing just different connectors)
If it is a large one then yes BUT if its a SATA style connector then you need to check whether: a)your mother board has a SATA socket & b)whether it is standard 4 pin molex power (like your other drives - CD/DVD etc) or it uses SATA power which is now included in the latest PSUs (power supply units).
SATA is a small plug with a thin lead - IDE is like a ribbon cable and the plug is about 1.5" wide.
If you managed to understand this and connected the hard drive - boot into windows - right click on my computer and then click on "manage" - once this window opens look for "drive management" and the drive should be in there ready to format/patition.
Hope this helps - email me if you need to.
2006-09-29 12:29:07 · answer #2 · answered by the thinker 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yes you can. Just open the PC, fix the disk, then connect the power cable of the sata hard disk, and also connect the sata IDE cable.
Then cover the PC and boot your PC.
2006-09-29 23:52:43 · answer #3 · answered by Morgan 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Technically you could, but I would not recommend it since you get very well damage it. By the way all the other people don't seem to have heard of external SATA, which it sounds like is what you have.
2006-09-29 15:49:43 · answer #4 · answered by mysticman44 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No
You can buy enclosures to convert internal hard drives into external, but not the other way around.
Unless you really do mean it has a sata connection. Usually only internal drives have a sata connector. External ones use usb2 usually, or firewire.
2006-09-29 12:06:48 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 4⤋
It can be done, however, you'll have to remove the drive from the usb case enclosure and install just the drive into your computer.
2006-09-29 12:17:03 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Lo último que compre fue un hard disk externo, siempre han sido de calidad los productos que he comprado en los sitios web pero esta compra ha pasado mis expectativos, un transporte muy rápido y un producto excelente de buena marca a un precio sin igual, seguramente la mejor compra.
2014-12-13 21:52:32 · answer #7 · answered by STRECKER 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Take it apart, the drive is just on a USB/SATA adapter.
I did that with my CD burner, did it to a friend's comp with his xternal.
2006-09-29 12:12:19 · answer #8 · answered by Mazz 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No it can not! Cause when windows is starting up he only starts up only internal hard drives....
External hard drive can work when windows loads up! You can not install Windows or any other OS on external hard drive...
Sorry....
2006-09-29 12:10:29 · answer #9 · answered by wllada2003 2 · 0⤊ 5⤋
you can use it as internal hard drive if you wanted to change your present hard drive using Via raid tools which creates image disk.
2006-09-29 12:07:39 · answer #10 · answered by precede2005 5 · 0⤊ 3⤋