Turning an Internal Harddrive into a External Harddrive?

Case?

[emodo]

I have a Western Digital 160gb internal hard drive.

I bought it for $30 during last year's Best Buy Thanksgiving Sale but I haven't been able to use it.

My desktop uses a thick red cable to connect to the HD, but this harddrive uses a tape-like cable.

Someone suggested I buy something to let me use the HD via USB 2 externally. But as you can tell I don't know anything about hardware.

Is there something you can buy which lets you use your internally HD externally via USB 2?

Thanks!

[bill]

Yes, they're called USB harddisk enclosures [google.com]. You can get them that have IEEE Firewire connections as well. You just stick the drive into the box and plug it in.

[steve]

Just make sure you get a USB2 version.

The older USB1.1 ones are really slow.