Can I make a external hard drive from a dead macbook

Vilky

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Sep 26, 2015
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Hello guys,

I have a dead macbook pro...
Is it possible to build a external drive from internal hard disk of macbook..
And use it with windows pc...??
 

Steven Jiang

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Mar 20, 2013
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*I am assuming you want to run OSX on the pc*
Well, you can do that, but your "windows pc" has to be running macintosh(what we call a hackintosh), which requires a second mac to be used for OSX installation. So in short, yes, if you have/ can get macintosh system onto your PC to make a hackintosh. However, if you can do neither of those, then no, you can't run it on a windows pc. Instead, you can use a drive enclosure to connect the disk to your MACBOOK usb port and run your macbook off that.
A product would be something like this.

(Geeky things down below if you want to get into details)
Basically, mac runs their own hard disk format called "Mac OS Extended" whilst windows runs off FAT32 or NTFS. As you can clearly see from the names, these are totally different formatting and making the two OS unable to write on each other's files(even though they can read). But, you can use software to transcript NTFS so that mac can read-and-write on the disk. For reading OSX Extended files off windows, you can also use a software. HOWEVER, if you want to RUN the ACTUAL MAC OS X OFF THE DISK, it's basically not possible without tweaking and modding the motherboard BIOS, which is incredibly risky and can fry your whole system.
 

Steven Jiang

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Mar 20, 2013
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When you want to boot on you macbook with the disk connected in the usb port, after pressing the power button, immediately hold down the option button until you see a grey interface showing you a USB disk drive(it will be a orange drive with a usb logo imprinted on it. then just select it and press enter to boot into that. You have to do this process EVERY TIME you boot up until you have your mac fixed/ backed up and ready to be thrown away.
 

Steven Jiang

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Mar 20, 2013
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And yes, the macbook pro uses sata connectors so it'll have no trouble.