So you want to buy an external hard drive, but you don't like the enclosure or more importantly the actual hard drive. Well you're not alone and we are going to show you how to build your own external hard drive. It's a simple procedure that 's both quick and easy.

   

You obviously need two key parts, an internal hard drive and an external enclosure. Please be sure to match interface, if you buy a SATA HD make sure to get an enclosure with a SATA interface and if you get an IDE drive be sure to get an IDE enclosure. Once you got these parts, follow the instructions provided by the enclosure manufacturer on how to mount the hard drive. This usually involves opening the enclosure ^_^ and simply sliding the hard drive into the corresponding interface slots. You will most likely also have to secure the the HD with screws or provided clamps. When choosing an external enclosure we recommend buying one with both an USB and SATA connection. If you have an extra SATA socket available on your motherboard, it would be wise to hook up the SATA PCI bracket that comes with the enclosure. Connecting your external hard drive through SATA will yield higher transfer rates then with USB 2.0.

Once you have connected everything, including the power adapter and turned on the device, your operating system should recognize the drive. If not, you might have to install drivers provided by the external enclosure manufacturer. Lastly you will have to initialize and partition the drive as with all drives you purchase. Head on over to the Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Computer Management area and select Disk Management.

 Once here a wizard will start, asking you to initialize the new hard drive. Complete the wizard by selecting next or yes on each prompt. If it doesn't start you will need to initialize the hard drive manually. Simply right click on the un-initialized disk and choose initialize, then follow instructions. You should now see the new disk and how much unallocated space it has. Right click and chose New Partition >> Primary Partition as shown above. You will also be asked how much disk space you want allocate to the new partition. If you don't plan on creating more then one partitions for the new drive you should choose the maximum space available and click next. Assign a drive letter and choose what file system to format the drive with. Leave the file system as NTFS, allocation unit size as Default and choose a Volume Label of your liking. After clicking next the wizard will present you with a summery of your choices, make sure everything looks good before proceeding. The Disk Manager will start formatting the drive and show you it's status in the form of a percentile. Formatting will take a few minutes depending on the size of your partition. Once done your new external HD is ready to use.

Be advised that if you ever need to turn of the external HD while your O/S is running, make sure to first stop the HD from the system tray (systray)  by right or left clicking on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon.