HDD: New Internal/external enclosure for old

Ok so when I bought my laptop I had every intention of upgrading my hdd when I had the money and I finally do. I'm going to order the ATA-6 Hitachi Travelstar 7200rpm/100gb drive tonight (newegg has it on sale ).
My questions are as follow:
I am planning on getting an external enclosure (this one to be precise http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145329 because it is the only one with a decent price and has the best reviews on newegg) the problem is that it is out of stock right now. Does anyone else have an enclosure that has worked well for them that is that price or cheaper? (it seems that all of the other enclosures that are decent prices have horror stories on the reviews so I'm hesitant to spring for a diff one)

That being said how do I turn off data security on this drive so I can access all of my files once it isn't in my computer; when my family got a new computer we had issues with this and I know there is a way to fix them because my dad did it (after being walked through by a support technician).

As far as Windows licensing goes: is it all right if this drive still has its installation while the new drive has it as well? (I want to transfer data before wiping it)

And finally, after I get all of the data I want from the old drive I want to wipe it and use it for storage. I'm kinda unfamiliar with the process and am wondering how to do it; I know you can get programs as iso files and do the bootable disk thing but is there an easier way for an external drive (with windows that needs to be eliminated as well)? And if you can just wipe the thing do you need to format it in any way for data storage or will Windows just recognize it like it wold a flash drive, as blank and ready to accept data?

Sorry for my rambling but I'm obviously new to this process and would be very thankful for any insight anyone could provide.

 

Hello,

I have been using this enclosure for 8 months now and I love it.

http://store.elementsource.com/bexenhadrsl2.html

And you can see, it is pretty cheap also. My only problem is that HD moves inside of the enclosure and there is no way to secure the HD. But other then that, its fine enclosure.

JC

 

Windows liscencing should be fine as it wont recognise the operating system on an external drive and go nutty, it'll just see loads of windows files. I think.

Once you've got your files off you should be able to format the whole drive from windows and that'll wipe it for all intents and purposes so you can store stuff on it. Alternatively you could pop it back in the laptop and use boot 'n' nuke to zero it, then pop your new drive back in and the old one in the external case, nice and zeroed. Yu can get boot 'n' nuke from the ultimate boot cd, which you can easily download and burn.

 

I'm also looking for an enclosure to be used with a laptop hard drive. The only thing is that the laptop is really, really old. It's a 486 @ 66MHz. What kind of HDD interface did people use back in the day?

 

Not sure if there was one! If it does have anything the transfer rate will be abysmal. Does the laptop have pcmcia?

 

The laptop is branded as "ARM" and was used by the Toronto police force in the field, until it was auctioned off and it came into my uncle's hands. It has a Toughbook-like construction, really built like a rock. Here are the specs:
66MHz 486 CPU
32MB of RAM
4GB HDD
Floppy drive, PS/2 port, VGA/printer port, AC power port, no communication lines to other computers except for the floppy drive. The laptop is from the 80s and runs Windows 95. It has no cooling system.

I want to make use of the hard disk, it's performance can't be too bad and I don't want to waste it before I pay to have it properly recycled. What kind of enclosures are there for these beauties?

EDIT; no PCMCIA, nothing for external comm. except for a modem (unsure) and a floppy drive.

 

https://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-211SATA

I have the ide usb2 firewire version of this same enclosure.

Its very nice and solid. I recomend it over the newegg ones although its sight unseen because i have a different model