3.5" HDD External Enclosure
 

I was recently given an old computer (an old Gateway). The person who gave it to me was just going to throw it out. At first I was going to do the same. I had it in a box sitting at the side of road waiting for the trash guys to take it when I decided to haul it back inside and pop it open to see what it had. I was thinking that I might take the hard drive and get an external enclosure for it. I'm glad I did (at least I hope)! It has a Maxtor PATA133 200GB drive with a manufacture date of 17 January, 2005. The computer case looks in rough shape. Little kids have really done a number to it. Inside, it doesn't look that bad. Here is a picture:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ldComputer.jpg

The people that had it didn't have the restore discs (surprise, surprise :damn:). Before I got the idea to turn the HDD into an external drive, I had thought about playing around with Linux on it. It has an Intel Celeron processor and Windows XP. It has 256MB of PC2100 RAM. It is a really narrow case and was a pain to try and open. I don't know if I can get it closed again! :oops::lol:

Are Maxtor hard drives any good? Would a 3 1/2 year old drive even be worth putting into an external enclosure? If I get the enclosure, can I format it right in Windows? Is there an enclosure you would recommend? Do any of you have any advice when looking at these things? I have never really looked for one before so I'm not sure if there is anything I should specifically be looking for. I like the idea of one so I can back stuff up without having to actually burn it. Thanks in advance!