Hard Disk Conversion

[monday.hopscotch]

My friend and I have a few old Hard Disks out of old computers, a 2gig
and a 6gig. My question being - Is there a possible way to convert them
into USB drives. We have a bunch of cords, pieces, etc. that we can use
so we are open to any suggestions.

 

[Ghostrider]

My friend and I have a few old Hard Disks out of old computers, a 2gig
and a 6gig. My question being - Is there a possible way to convert them
into USB drives. We have a bunch of cords, pieces, etc. that we can use
so we are open to any suggestions.

Probably no longer worth it to do so but the only way to make
them into USB drives is to buy an USB external drive enclosure.
It takes a little bit more than wires, cables, sealing wax, etc.,
the other parts being an embedded drive controller, bios, etc.
There are now 2 GB jumpdrives that cost less than an USB enclosure
and the 4 GB's, not too much more.

 

[Guest]

Ghostrider is correct. It's not a great idea to buy enclosures for your aged
3.5" HDDs, but if it's something you have your heart set on it's not terribly
expensive.
Posted here are some external HDD enclosures on newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010090092+1053807123&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=92

Note that given the size of your hard drives, they most likely spin at
5400RPM versus the 7200 of today's drives. As such, you may or may not notice
a difference in performance when copying large files over to the disk.

 

[Glen]

As well as enclosures mentioned you can buy USB to IDE leads. You literally
just plug the leads in and the drive is hot pluggable.

A quick google search turned up this
http://www.dansdata.com/satausb.htm

Here one at Maplins
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48965&doy=13m7&C=SEO&U=strat15

I've seen them much cheaper than the one listed. They are really handy as
even if the drives are old or slow they can make a good backup or use them
to transfer large files around and so on.