broken external hard drive

I own the seagate free agent desktop external hard drive http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=freeagent-desktop-320gb-usb2.0-external-hd&vgnextoid=d959812ecd8a0110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=8d3f26bbdae90110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&reqPage=Model. The port on the drive that connects the hard drive to the computer is broken but im fairly sure the hard drive itself is still usable. Can I take out the hard drive and place it into another enclosure and use it? If the answer to that is yes, is it a relatively easy process, and how do I know what type of enclosure to buy?

 

yes you can that should be a problem at all I had to do that once.

 

You can probably get it fixed under warranty.

 

I can get a replacement and lose my data or do data recovery on a drive im almost positive works and spend hndreds to thousands of dollars. How would I know if this enclosure http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Thermaltake-Silver-River-2-5-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-A2397/sem/rpsm/oid/190436/catOid/0/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do would work?

 

The circuit city one is for a laptop drive or 2.5'' drive. You are going to want a 3.5'' enclosure.

The other question is IDE or SATA for the drive in the enclosure?

 

Is the only way to find out to open it?

 

It is sata. Seagate has stopped putting ide drives in their external enclosures for a while now....

 

thanks, now I just gotta buy one and hope my clumsiness doesn't cause me to screw up big time.

 

ya, it is hard as hell to take apart without destroying it though. mine took a dump on me the other day too, but it is the actual drive... it is going to cost a fortune to recover unfortunately

 

if you are looking for a new enclosure other than Seagate, the Akasa P2 are good i think.... i got one myself - and intend to put a 1TB SATA HDD in it, looks nice and also fanless, made of Aluminium.

 

Does anyone have any tips for opening it and removing the hard drive without damaging it?

 

i would have thought it would be just unscrewing the enclosure and unplugging the sata connection, you should be fine with just that, i don't think you will damage the hard drive.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

 

There are times external hard drives are cheaper than their internal brethren. Its at these times that I purchase said external boxes and rip the hard drive out for use internally. I've probably done this 10 times at least and in all actuality unless you have the rage of a cage fighter, its really hard to damage the hard drive. Just unscrew the screws, pop the plastic tabs(if there are any) with a flathead and viola.

 

Well honestly I am full of rage all the time, but it's only a slow boil really. Hopefully I won't snap during my work on the hard drive.

 

this enclosure is difficult to open, i was able to do it but i do that kind of stuff all the time. don't worry about damaging the actual hard drive, just use common seance and it isn't a problem

 

The job has been performed and it was so simple. Thank you all for your responses.