Comments for Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

Comment from Chuck on 2012-01-13

2012-01-13T17:13:51Z

Using external 1tb drive as internal using sata. Device manager sees drive but does not show up in root. Any clues as to why?

Not sure what you mean by "root", but it sounds like this article: How do I get my attached drive to show in Windows Explorer?

13-Jan-2012

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A comment on: Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

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Comment from Your Guide on 2011-07-15

2011-07-15T10:46:47Z

save all your content first before you do it or risk losing your data

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A comment on: Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

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Comment from Muhsincan on 2010-09-22

2010-09-22T11:42:35Z

I have the same problem as Yuval with a Smartdisk external and samsung 1TB SATA HDD inside, I also tried to change some bios settings (AHCI to IDE) but nothing seems to work, maybe we should try formatting the drive somehow or changing jumper settings

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Comment from Yuval on 2010-08-30

2010-08-30T13:59:10Z

i have a 1TB external hard drive. i tried to convert it into an internal harddrive becaouse the usb port of the case stopped working. The hard drive connected with a SATA cable to the motherboard. All i did is to connect it to the power supply and to the motherbaord. From some reason it doesnt work. I go to My Computer and i only see the original hard drive. can u PLEASE advise me what to do????? i have some important content on that hard drive..

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Comment from Buddha on 2010-04-11

2010-04-11T19:28:15Z

what would someone need to make an external HDD internal?

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Comment from FLARE on 2010-03-03

2010-03-03T17:55:45Z

i have destroyed 2 hard drives by connecting an internal hard drive via usb. a 300gb, and 500gb. at the time, those were the highest capacity you could get, so i lost a lot of money.

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Comment from robkay on 2009-11-26

2009-11-26T17:10:55Z

Is it possible to convert/swap internal 3.5 sata drives to ide,and vice

versa by changing the electrical board on similar manufacturers drives

where the contacts mate up?.I did this on a Maxtor IDE 20gb to a Maxtor

SATA 100gb and the bios recognized a drive but XP didnt.WD drives also

have some similarity in respects to the disk,board and mounting.Since I

have a limited number of drives to experiment with and that I was

working with junk,and dont want to possibly ruin the remainder,have you

had success with this?(not looking for USB powered drives)Thanks RK

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Comment from michael on 2009-11-16

2009-11-17T01:20:37Z

Yes you can connect a USB as an internal drive. I used a seagate 320Gb laptop drive as an internal backup drive in my Windows Home Server. I did not open the case so I do not know what the interface is, I suspect it is SATA. I cut a Mini D cable that I had laying around to about 10 inches long. I built a 10 pin header (with a key pin) from components to plug it into the motherboard. I siamesed both ports power leads to keep adequate wattage to the drive even under heavy use(there is only 500ma per port doubled to 1000ma or 5 watts). I also added an external switch to the harness so I can turn it off for secure storage. I did not remove the case and I can remove the drive simply by unplugging it from the harness. This also means I did not void the warranty. Works great and can be turned on at any time, just make sure you disconnect it (in windows) before turning it off. I also tried this with a mybook 160Gb drive (12v/IDE interface board 3.5" drive). I removed the case and covered the interface board to prevent a short. Modified the power plug to connect it to a spare hard drive power. It also worked great, matter of fact it responded faster than before. I believe this was due to the really short USB cable compared to the original 6 footer it came with. Just remember this is a USB interface and it is not going to be fast, but is a good backup and streams music just fine. There are many resources on the net to figure out the wiring.

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Comment from Lobo on 2009-08-04

2009-08-05T01:45:09Z

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Comment from Ignis on 2009-07-21

2009-07-22T05:52:15Z

Recently my external hardrive off 1TB wasqnt detected by windows anymore so i opened it and inside where 2 SATA drives off 500GB each, so i hooked them up to my pc to try and recover the data but it seems that only 1 drive has the filesystem on it from both drives.

Do you know of any way i can still recover the data from both cause datarecovery programs only manage to get around 5% off data off the second drive cause they cant detect the system (wich is FAT32)

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Comment from anirudh on 2009-05-17

2009-05-17T12:24:37Z

hey,I want to make my USB hard drive an internal one because it keeps getting disconnected.Its a transcend storejet 25p USB hard drive.So can you tell me what the problem is and please tell me whether games can be run on a USB external hard drive.

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Comment from Rob on 2009-03-13

2009-03-13T17:19:03Z

I have a WD5000aajs external hard drive that has about a hundred gigs of music on it and my fiance plug the wrong power adapter into to it on accident. Was wandering if there is any way to hook it up to my desktop so I can atleast get my music off?? Would appreciate any help you can give me!
Thanks Alot

It depends on how comfortable you are playing with hardware, and exactly what's been damaged. Inside the external hard drive box are two components: a hard drive like any other, and a USB interface. If it's just the USB interface, then you migh have luck removing the hard drive and installing it into a computer directly. You'll just need to make sure that the computer has the correct interface for the hard drive - I did this and found that my WD500 had an eSata interface, which only one of my machines at the time could support.

- Leo
14-Mar-2009

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A comment on: Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

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Comment from chris on 2009-02-02

2009-02-02T20:57:59Z

i have a Maxtor SATA external HDD and i wanted to convert it into an internal...how can i do this? as the slave connector port is on a seperate board, i dont see any way to connect this? plz help!

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Comment from Karl Krautscheid on 2009-01-12

2009-01-12T20:27:35Z

Leo,
I have a cable to convert an IDE HD to USB.
I would like to put this into my computer case and power it with the computers power supply.
My question is:
Can I cut the 5 volt cable and ad a toggle switch to turn the drive off when not in use?
Will My Computer see the drive when I turn the power back on?
Thanks for the reply.

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Comment from Arjen on 2008-12-04

2008-12-04T20:17:54Z

Leo,

The power adapter (ad6008) of my WD harddrive has shut down. This adapter supplies 5V and 12V to the drive by a din plug. Is it still possible to use the drive internally?

Thank you for the reply.

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A comment on: Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

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Comment from William on 2008-10-15

2008-10-15T15:49:16Z

How about the reverse? I have a removable internal IDE HD (D:) but when I replace it, I have to reboot. Can I make it a USB plug and play?
Thanks

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A comment on: Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

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Comment from Ken on 2007-08-22

2007-08-22T13:40:47Z

I have taken many internal drives and placed them in external USB enclosures, and they have always kept their contents. (Or, at least, they didn't lose anything else. Several of these were from non-booting Windows systems, and nearly all the data was recoverable once moved to another computer.)

Whether one can move a USB drive between Windows and Macs, on the other hand, I have no clue.

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A comment on: Can I convert an external USB hard drive into an internal one?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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