Can I change the internal drive on an external Hard drive?

[mikeconic]

I have an old external hard drive and the drive in it is no longer working. I was wondering if I can open it up and replace the drive inside with an old internal HDD I have? It is just as simple as swapping them? Or will the enclosure only work with the original drive, or need some kind of firmware or something?

Thanks

 

[drkatz42]

open it up and make sure the interface/power connectors will work with the other drive. if so, you're good to go.

 

[boosted1g]

Newer external hard drives do have special instructions in their firmware to prevent using a different drive or removing the drive and using it as an internal drive.

In your case you should be fine as long as both drives are the correct interface. Anything made in the last 5 years should be SATA connection, but anything before that could use the legacy IDE connector (there was a good 5 years of IDE supported devices still being made after SATA came out).

There is naturally the other factor of the two different sizes of hard drives between the laptop 2.5" drive and the desktop 3.5" drive. If the external does not have a separate power adapter then it is a 2.5" laptop drive.

 

[giantbucket]

well, an easy way to find out is to actually open it! it might be a plain ol' SATA interface, but if the whole case looks to be almost the exact same size as a normal drive, it's possible that the board on that drive isn't a traditional SATA (or IDE) board but goes direct to USB. for example, my little 2.5" WD Elements is far too short to be a normal SATA drive inside with a SATA-to-USB converter circuit - it's actually a pure direct USB circuit board, so not user swappable.

 

[mikeconic]

Not sure if this changes anything, but the old external IS an IDE device inside, and the old HDD I have that I want to use as a replacement is also an IDE.

 

[giantbucket]

then it should be easy to just swap them. presumably the dead one is dead and the replacement is empty, so even if you hose it you don't lose anything.

 

[Bambam47]

You could actullay it just depends on the make and model of the drive