Salvaged hard drive questions.

[Roadrunner]

My Dell Desktop computer's motherboard died one month after the warranty expired.  I have purchased two Lenovos, an R61i and a K210.  The hard drive on the Dell was replaced about 6 months ago.  Of course I would like to recover data from the SATA drive but I am thinking that I might also be able to use the drive with my new computers.

Questions:

1.    Can I use the Dell drive in an external USB case or should I install the drive as a slave drive in my desktop?

2.    Can I run programs from the drive, such as Microsoft Office?

3.    Is installing the drive internally in my desktop a risky procedure?

4.    Do you think I will ever buy another Dell computer?

Thank you for any advice.

Roadrunner

Tucson

[wjli2]

1. It depends on whether you want to use it for desktop exclusively or as a mobile harddrive.

2. Are you saying that you want to run the Office from the Dell's old working partition, this would

be difficul.

3. Installing harddrive is pretty easy, but make sure you ground yourself.

4. Every computer breaks down some time, desktop are usually pretty reliable.