Additional Storage for Music and Pictures

I have a USB 2.0 external enclosure that I can probably take apart since the last drive just died in it. (The hard drive took a dive off the desk while I had it on and now makes a screetching noise and is no longer recognized by my computer. )

My question is, after opening up the case and seeing that it's a Maxtor drive inside, besides replacing it with an identical hard drive, can I buy another manufacturer's drive and assume it will fit in the case? If I purchase an internal hard drive, do they all hook up the same?

This Maxtor drive looks like it's connected to the case in two ways. One, a wide strip of plastic gray "ribbon" and two, a plastic thing that has 1 red, 2 black and 1 yellow wire coming out of it.

I don't even know if I can pull really hard on these things to detach the old hard drive without damaging the case/ enclosure. Is there a trick to detaching the old hard drive? A trick to attaching the new hard drive?

I was devestated to lose over 140 GB of music, I'd hate to lose a new hard drive I purchase by mishandling it.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

The ribbon cable is the control cable from the USB/system board connection. There's one just like in on the internal drive. The other one is the power cable. They both unplug. Yes, you can replace the drive. Just take notice of the jumper on the end right beside the ribbon cable. There are three choices usually marked master, slave or cable select. Set the new drive just like the damaged one. In an external case it's usually master.

I'd stick with Maxtor. I have five of them in various machines and enclosures. Very reliable.

Now.

After you get the new drive up and working, once a month or so burn the contents to DVD media. I do.

Wayne

Okay, after having posted earlier in the day, I spent the last few hours reading up on hard drives. So... now I know I have a Maxtor IDE hard drive with a USB 2.0 connection.

My question is this... for anyone out there reading.

Do casings/ enclosures for hard drives have a maximum capacity of storage it can hold? In this case, my old hard drive is a 200GB, ATA/133. Would the case it's in be compatible for a 250GB ATA/133?

I've noticed that some cases on the market specify a compatibility range. For example the "Cables To Go- Go Data 3.5", USB 2.0 HD Enclosure" says it "Supports Ultra ATA66/100/133 drives up to 160GB."

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=634757&CatId=0

Is this simply ad copy that limits the product or
is there really a cap on these things.

Theoretically, would the Seagate hard drive below be
compatible with the casing listed above?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1265028&sku=THD-250A

And if it's not, why is that?
Is it because the casing might cause
a bigger drive to overheat?

Thanks!

but if there is a warning about the size, I'd heed it. It's be a shame to try a larger drive and loose everything.

Many enclosures do not say what their controllers can take. Most specs go as far as saying:

# USB 2.0 interface (backwards compatible to USB 1.1)
# Fits any 3.5-inch hard drive
# E-IDE/ATAPI interface
# 480 Mbps maximum data transfer
# 40x faster than USB1.1
# Hot swappable
# PC and Macintosh compatible


Only a few here and there actually say, "Supports Ultra ATA66/100/133 drives up to 160GB."

Therefore I'm not sure what a difference it would make
if my old enclosure has a 8MB, 200GB hard drive and I want to replace it with a 8MB, 250GB.

I'm thinking it's only 50GB more (hahah.... only!) and I'm not changing the MB size.... so it should work.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Thanks!