I forgot to backup some savegames from my old HDD when i changed computers, what's the best way to get at them? Can I just plug it in with a sata cable without formatting it first?

I've also seen there's some ways to turn them into USB compatible portable disks, anyone ever try that before? any tips on how to do it? I think i'd like keeping it around as a portable drive.

If you're happy popping open your case, then the easiest and cheapest method is connecting it to a spare sata port.

The Bios shouldn't set it as the boot device, if you can see the numbers on the SATA ports plug it into one higher than your currently using.

What will happen when you navagate to the user folder is it will ask to take ownership. this can take a few minute, and nothig to worry about. Its just OS security.

If it's a desktop HDD you could use something like this. I like it because it's neat and you can plug any 3.5" and 2.5" HDD in it.

Just so you're aware, there are also cheaper solutions like in this picture, which typically costs less but it's a bit more clumsy.

The only difference between the two (aside from the price and appearance) is that with the cheaper model you can also connect the old PATA (IDE) drives.

Ah, I was looking exactly for something like that... damn thing's pretty expensive though. Don't really want to fiddle about with tons of cables either. Guess I'll just plug it in the oldfashioned way. Thanks mechmouse for the explanation.

I bought some years ago something like that:
https://www.conrad.de/de/usb-20-anschlusskabel-1x-usb-20-stecker-a-1x-sata-stecker-7pol-ide-buchse-40pol-ide-buchse-44pol-120-m-schwarz-logilink-990636.html

I've got a desk dock like the ones the other guys showed, but then on my desk right now is a 2.5" disk from a laptop I dropped (owch) and to my left is the gutted remain of our old file server.

WBGhiro, if you hit any problems just post up.