Safe to move 3.5" IDE drive to enclosure?

[msaz87]

Hey all,

I have a SimpleTech HDD that has stopped reading. It sounds like it's still running, it powers on fine and everything, it's just not picked up by the computer, so I'd like to open it up and move the drive into an enclosure, but I want to confirm it won't cause any damage in doing so.

The drive within the HDD is a Samsung SP2514N and so I was looking at using an enclosure like this one.

Is there any reason to think this would not work or could potentially cause damage to the drive?

Thanks for the help!

[Vulcan]

Provided that there is nothing special about the existing SimpleTech enclosure (e.g. built-in encryption), I see no reason why your linked Vantec enclosure wouldn't be suitable, in principle.

However, that does not mean that using another enclosure will necessarily fix your issue - the drive itself may be the cause of the problem, and the new enclosure might therefore be a waste of money. There is also a small risk that you receive a faulty enclosure (or PSU) that does cause damage to the hard disk, even if the design of that enclosure model would generally be OK. As with any diagnosis, it's best to test your tools / spare parts, and have confidence in them, before using them on important drives. There are also risks of ESD damage, if you are not familiar with the necessary precautions.

Unfortunately your comment of "not picked up by the computer" is ambiguous - the meaning of this varies depending on exactly where you are looking for it to be "picked up" e.g. (assuming you're using Windows) you might mean My Computer / drive management / USB device tree etc. etc. Using Linux (if you're skilled in that) often gives much easier diagnosis for this type of situation IMHO, since the dmesg output shows useful details of exactly what the OS is detecting.

Trying a different enclosure is one of the different possible troubleshooting approaches you could try - another technique (usually preferred for diagnosis) would be to attach the drive direct to an IDE port (but you may not have a computer which still has such a port).

[Junior0409]

Why not connected directly to your pc without an enclosure. If it works then you can go ahead and buy another enclosure. Like Vulcan said, why waist your money?