After a 7-year corporate stint, Tanveer found his love for writing and tech too much to resist. An MBA in Marketing and the owner of a PC building business, he writes on PC hardware, technology, and Windows. When not scouring the web for ideas, he can be found building PCs, watching anime, or playing Smash Karts on his RTX 3080 (sigh).
You might have heard about repurposing old hard drives into external drives so that you can take your data with you, but how about doing the reverse — turning your external hard drive into an internal hard drive? It turns out this is possible on many external hard drives with some handiwork and luck. In a nutshell, you need to "shuck" the drive out of its enclosure, remove the SATA-to-USB adapter from the picture, and connect the drive to your computer just like an internal drive.
Not all external drives will be compatible with this method, since some of the newer models don't use a SATA-to-USB adapter anymore, directly soldering the USB controller to the drive. As for why you would want to do it, you could potentially boost performance by using the faster SATA interface over USB 2 or USB 3, or use your external drive as dedicated storage on your PC if you keep it connected 24x7 anyway. It could also be a fun DIY project for an old external hard drive you don't mind losing (though you shouldn't if you follow the steps carefully).
If you want to take apart an external drive and make it internal, you'll need a few tools:
An external hard drive
A plastic (preferred) or metal blade or prying tool
An old credit card or gift card
A Philips screwdriver
Static-free tape
Convert your external hard drive into an internal hard drive
It's not as hard as you might thing
If you have an older external hard drive or even a newer model from Seagate or some smaller manufacturers, chances are high that your drive is simply a SATA drive built into an enclosure with a SATA-to-USB adapter inside. Many WD external drives make this DIY conversion difficult, but there might be a way around that too. You'll have to dismantle the external casing to be sure, but it's a fairly simple and quick process if you're careful enough.
Depending on the make and model of the drive, you might not need the tape at all. Once you have everything, find a comfortable space to work, and get started:
Begin by backing up any data on the external drive, just in case something goes awry during the process.
Disconnect your external drive, remove any cables, and inspect the external case to find where to insert the prying tool. Most high-capacity drives will slide sideways out of the casing, while others might have a plastic lid that comes out from the top.
Insert the plastic prying tool between the case and the rest of the drive (not too far into the drive) and apply some force to pop open one of the clips. You can insert an old credit card into the newly formed opening while you go around the drive to pop open the other clips. Using a plastic prying tool is preferable to avoid scratching or damaging the drive so that you don't face any problems if you need to RMA the drive in the future.
You can use a metal blade if you don't have a plastic one available. Once you're able to pop open all the clips, you can use the credit card to further widen the opening.
Using a bit of pressure, push the external case sideways or away from the drive (depending on the model), revealing the internal drive assembly.
You will now have a familiar internal hard drive that you can simply connect to your PC using SATA power and data cables (if you're lucky).
If the BIOS fails to detect the drive, you'll need a few more steps. One of the pins on the SATA power connector disables the drive (on some drives) when it detects a signal. You need to stop the pin from doing so.
Disconnect the drive and use the static-free tape (heat tape) to cover the third pin on the SATA power connector (or the first 3 pins if you're finding it difficult) so that it's unable to send a signal telling the drive to shut down.
Reconnect the drive to your PC and check the BIOS to see if it's detected. Most probably, you should now be able to see it in the BIOS as well as within Windows.
If you're able to see all of your data inside Windows, you've successfully converted your external drive into an internal drive. If not, you can format and partition the drive using Disk Management, enabling it for regular use.
Say hello to your new internal HDD
Turning an internal hard drive into an external one using an enclosure is perhaps more common than doing the opposite. However, if you really want to, you can repurpose your old external hard drive into a regular internal drive with a few simple tricks. Some newer drives might not support this method, but it isn't rare to have an external drive that still uses a SATA-to-USB adapter inside.
