external to internal hard drive

[Alisayshi]

HI

I have a old external hard drive that would not appear on my computer and I want to see if what files are on it. I put it into my computer into one of my open bays and discovered that it only allows me to reformat it which mean I would be erasing all the files that are currently on it. Does anyone know how I can read the files that are on the hard drive? The circuit board that it was with is no longer working. this drive is at least a decade old.

[LWM723]

Which circuit board, the enclosure or the drive? Can you put the drive in another enclosure?

[Alisayshi]

No I don’t have another enclosure big enough  to hold the hard drive. The hard drive is a hitachi touro drive 3tb. Is it possible to just plug it into a Sata connector that goes into USB or do I need the circuit board to make the computer recognize that it has files. I am sorry in advance if the connection to the hard drive is not a sata.

[Praetor5426]

If the drive has connectors for SATA data and power then yes, you can simply plug it into your computer like a normal drive, however if when you plug it in the drive is asking for a format that usually means a drive failure. 

[Alisayshi]

Okay thanks ya it wouldn’t register on any device while it was in an enclosure so ya would make sense that the drive failed