When you have just upgraded your CPU’s hard drive and writer with a much larger capacity, you will probably think that it is now time to throw it away because it has no more use. The thing is you can actually turn that hard drive into a USB DVD writer without having to spend much money. If you are having second thoughts about doing it, just think that owning an external DVD drive will really be a benefit for you because you can use it to transfer large files from one computer to another.
In order to successfully convert your internal hard drive into a USB DVD writer, you first need to find the right enclosure for it. You must make sure that the enclosure you choose will really work for your hard drive. For you to be able to do this, you must first determine whether your drive is an IDE or SATA drive.
Most probably, older hard drives are IDE while the newer ones are SATA, but to be sure it is advisable that you check what type it really is. When the enclosure has already been decided on, the next thing that you should choose is the right cord to use for it. In order to determine the right cord to use for your hard drive, you must first check your CPU and see if it has more USB connections or FireWire.
When the cord and enclosure has already been chosen, of course the next thing to do is to install the enclosure into the hard drive itself. This part should not be that hard because you would only need a screwdriver to do it and a little common sense. After which, the only thing you need to do is to connect all the cables on their proper location.
Make sure that the cables are inserted properly on their respective outlets otherwise the external hard drive will not work properly. Now when you are ready to connect it to your PC, you must first attach it to the power supply that should come with the enclosure that you bought along with the data cable. Installations must be made when the enclosure was bought with specific drivers for your computer to be able to detect it properly.
When all these steps have already been done, there should not be any problems with detecting it when you connect it to your computer. You will know that your computer has successfully detected your new hardware if it assigns it a new drive letter. Another test that you can also do to check your new hard drive is to transfer different files back and forth. If everything works out perfectly, then you were successful in creating your own external hard drive.
Experiencing the benefits of an external USB DVD writer does not necessarily mean that you should spend much money for it. As you have read, you can actually bring in the benefits in your own home for a much cheaper price by being resourceful.
Wikipedia has more info about DVD writers
However if you don’t feel like making your own Amazon has some great deals on those external writers.
P.s. I am not affiliated with Amazon in any way