Hacking a LaCie ATA External Firewire Enclosure

Recently hacked my FireWire LaCie external To make it a universal FireWire  plug-n'-play ATA adapter for just about any ATA 3.5 drive. Total cost was $0.00!! It works like a dream and is far faster than any ATA USB external, since it's Firewire.
A useful repurpose for an otherwise tired LaCie external. Thought others might like to know it can be done easily. This is so handy—Especially if the drive in your LaCie is full or needs to be replaced and LaCie is out of warranty. It's very simple. All need is some extra time, and a bunch of old drives laying around collecting dust. I'm now able to store all my native iMovie and iDVD files on the old ATA drives. :-)
The Story:
I had an old LaCie 120 GB external that housed an ATA Western Digital HD. After almost filling up the drive with back-up files, (a few years later), I noticed the HD was faltering. It was having trouble writing files to other drives and the like. I decided it was time to tear the external housing apart and maybe put a new drive in it. First I copied off all my important data to another drive.
After getting it apart I was surprised to see that the drive inside was nothing but a Western Digital ATA 120 GB drive. I initially thought it would be a LaCie brand HD.
It was connected with a Molex power plug and a short 40 pin data ribbon. I lengthened both so I could quickly attach drives on the outside of the case by simply plugging them in. Ie.- (Plug-N-Play). Just make sure the jumpers on the drives you want to plug in are set to "Master" and your good to go.
The How:
I added length to the Molex power wires by first removing the stock LaCie Molex power plug from the 4 power wires, then soldered on 4 more inches of wire that were already coming out of a used Molex plug. Thus, lengthening the power wires by 4 inches. I used shrink tubing on all the soldered connections then covered that with electrical tape. I added a zip tie to the frame-work on the inside of the LaCie case and anchored the power wires to it. That way, the power wires would not be accidentally pulled out of the circuit board when attaching and reattaching drives. I replaced the LaCie (short) drive data ribbon with a much longer drive data ribbon scabbed out of an old PC. Now I could attach any ATA drive on the outside of the LaCie case, without opening it up. I did have to make some cut-outs in the aluminum LaCie case to accommodate the exiting power wires and data cable to be able to snap the LaCie case back together. It's not glamourous, but it works great for attaching and removing any ATA HD quickly.
Cheers! :-)

BDAqua,
Thanks. And thanks for that tip. Your right that some of the enclosures are limited to the drive size that came with the enclosure. Luckily my enclosure was made for at least 120GB.   Most of the old HDs I have laying around are smaller than 120GB. Not sure if the LaCie enclosure would have a limit on it or not.

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