How I turned an old HDD into a DIY external drive

There are several ways to repurpose old hard drives in your computing setup, whether it’s using them to expand your game storage or leveraging them in a DIY NAS. But if you don’t want to go around opening up PCs or tinkering with NAS-tier operating systems, a makeshift external drive is a great way to get more use out of your spare drives.

A person holding a WD Blue HDD© Provided by XDA Developers

SMR drives can be useful when archiving data, but you shouldn't use them in NAS setups involving frequent write operations

What you’ll need for this project

Besides the hard drive, you’ll need a docking station, mounting enclosure, or adapter to connect the HDD to your PC. For a barebones setup involving 2.5-inch drives, you can grab a SATA to USB (preferably USB 3.0) converter and call it a day. However, larger 3.5-inch desktop drives require an extra power connector that plugs into a wall socket, since your average USB port can’t supply enough juice to the HDD.

A transparent render of the Unitek USB 3.0 to IDE and SATA Converter

Unitek USB 3.0 to IDE and SATA Converter

Pairing the internal HDD with an adapter

Once you’ve gathered the necessary components, it’s time to prepare your HDD adapter. To do so,

1. Pair the SATA and power connectors of the adapter/enclosure/docking station with their respective sockets on the HDD.
   

   Connecting power and SATA ports to a DIY external HDD

   
   
2. Connect the USB 3 Micro-B cable to the adapter while plugging the USB 3.0 Type-A end into your PC.
   

   Plugging the USB 3.0 Micro-B cable into the HDD mount

   
   
3. (Optional) If you’re using a 3.5-inch desktop drive, remember to connect its power adapter to a wall outlet.

Setting up the DIY external HDD on a PC

With the physical connections out of the way, you may need to format it before you can use it to store data. Remember that doing so will wipe all the files on the drive, so it’s a good idea to back up its data using Veeam, AOMEI Backupper, Restic, or another disk cloning tool. Assuming you’re on Windows,

1. Right-click on the Start button and select Disk Management.
   

   Selecting the Disk Management option

   
   
2. When the Initialize Disk pop-up appears, choose GPT and hit OK.
   

   Selecting GPT inside the Disk Management app

   
   
3. Scroll down until you see the newly-added drive with the unallocated volume.
4. Right-click on the drive and select New Simple Volume.
   

   Creating a new storage volume in the Disk Management utility

   
   
5. Tap Next on the Welcome screen of the Volume Creation wizard before selecting the Size of the storage volume.
   

   Selecting the volume size in the Disk Management tool

   
   
   Remember to hit Next after each step.
6. Pick a Drive Letter for your storage volume.
   

   Assigning a Drive Letter inside the Disk Management utility

   
   
7. Choose the option to Format the volume and ensure that the correct File system, Allocation unit size, and Volume label are selected.
   

   Formatting a volume inside the Disk Management utility

   
   
8. Click on the Finish button and wait for the wizard to create the storage volume.
   

   Completing the New Simple Volume wizard

   
   

Resurrecting an internal HDD as a portable drive

The newly formatted drive shows up inside the File Explorer

If you’ve followed all the steps correctly, your hard drive will appear inside File Explorer, and you can start using it as an external storage drive. For an ancient drive that's been in use for ages, it’s a good idea to check its health inside CrystalDiskInfo. If its health status reads anything besides “good,” you might want to give up on the idea of using it for backups or archival purposes.