Once you’ve done this you should have a bare bones hard disk drive with nothing attached to it. There will be a manufacturers label on the top of it that will tell you the brand (e.g. IBM, Hitachi etc.) and also tell you the storage capacity of the drive and whether its IDE/ATA/PATA or the newer SATA type of hard drive.

The easiest way to recover the data from the disk is with a USB to IDE/SATA cable kit because these kits work with any Hard Disk drive irrespective of make, type, size. For this reason they are really popular with IT techies, IT support staff and IT engineers because one of these kits can be a life-saver.

The kits come with all you need to power up the hard disk drive and connect it to your PC using USB. Once connected the hard disk drive just shows up as a new drive letter (e.g. E:) and you can then read/write to and from the disk.

The kits are on offer at the moment at only £15.95 and in 2009 they were the best selling product in the USBNow store

USB 2.0 IDE & SATA Cable (with Power Supply)

Hard Drives are getting bigger (in terms of storage capacity) because we’re all storing more information on them like music downloads, movies, family videos and pictures. They’re also bigger to cope with the “bloat” in Operating Systems and program files all of which are now significantly larger than they were just a few years ago.

Keeping this growing amount of data in one place where it’s prone to corruption, failure and theft is not a good idea. Add to this the threat of virus’s and Trojan security attack and then you realise that backing up your data on an external hard drive is not just a good idea its essential. Unfortunately too few people have considered this and its only when disaster strikes that the consequences of not having a back up are fully realised.

Backs up solitions don’t have to cost a fortune either. You can of course spend money on packaged hard drives from companies like Maxtor, Lacie and Freecom but a more cost effective solution is to buy an external had drive enclosure and use a hard drive salvaged from an old PC. Or if you don’t have an old PC just buy a new Hard Drive and an Enclosure and combine the two – both approaches will save you a significant amount of money.

An external hard drive enclosure is slightly larger than the hard drive itself, it will often come with a stand or carrying wallet and all the cables you need to connect it to your PC.

The hard drive and the enclosure sit outside of your computer and are connected to the computer through a high-speed interface cable, which enables the external hard drive to communicate with the computer by means of interfaces like USB and Fire Wire.

When it’s connected you can use the external drive just as you would the drive inside the computer but it has the added benefit of being removable and portable. So, you can store it securely or take it and your data with you.

Hard drives enclosures are available in two basic formats: SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) and IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics). IDE drives use a 40-pin connection. SATA is the standard for all new Hard Drives, it’s faster and transfers data at six times the speed of IDE external hard drive.

Whatever option you choose remember to back up on a regular basis.

Of course for many the aesthetics of the Hard Drive Enclosure (also often referred to as a HDD caddy or HDD case) are important because you’ll often want the enclosure to match with the other bits of kit you’ve got on your desk or in your home office. For some features likes fans or flashing lights are also key.

One further consideration you might give is ease of use and ease of making back-ups to the Hard Drive in the Hard Drive Enclosure. The later point is particularly pertinent because for many the primary reason to buy an enclosure and build an external storage solution is data back up. Given how much information we now store on our PC’s including family photos, movies, music collections and of course work files, backing up our cherished data (and our work) is critical.

Ease of data backup is helped if you buy a hard drive enclosure with a built in “One-touch” back up button built into it. These enclosures are supplied with software that is easy to load and simple to use. The software allows you to define which directories, sub-directories, folders, files and even specific files that you want to back up. When you then press the backup button on the enclosure the files you have elected to back up with automatically be copied from your PC to the Hard Drive in the enclosure.

This feature, whilst not something everyone will need, is an excellent option. It takes the guesswork out of what you need to back up and because it’s so easy to do its far more likely you will actually back up your important data. A good routine to get into is to press the back-up button before you power off the PC for the day.

The fact an enclosure has a back-up button built in does not impair its use in any other way. You can still copy, save, retrieve data from the hard drive just as you would using any hard drive enclosure. There’s no compromise on the types of Hard Disk Drives that can be used, the connection options or the styling. What you will have do however is pay a small premium for a case with this feature but given the costs of not backing up your data it’s a small price to pay.

Find the correct HDD Enclosure for you. Take a look at some of the following:
External Drive Enclosures, 1.8″ Hard Drive Cases, 2.5″ Hard Drive Cases, 3.5″ Hard Drive Cases, 5.25″ Hard Drive & Optical Drive, IDE & SATA Cable Kits, Freecom Hard Drives, Fujitsu Hard Drives