There is a couple of reasons why you might need an external hard drive enclosure

• Your computer crashed and need access to the data on the drive
• You have an extra hard drive that you need to connect to a system but no room inside the computer
  

Advantages of using an external hard drive

Installing a hard drive in an enclosure is easy to do.

 
First you need to know if you have an ATA hard drive or a SATA hard drive.

Click here to find out how to determine which one you have.

Once you determine the type you have, you need to make sure you get the correct enclosure that fits your drive.

Click the link below to get instructions on how to install the hard drive into the enclosure and to use it.

2.5 size hard drives for laptop size hard drives

3.5 size hard drives that fit into regular desktop computers