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Why was this question closed?

access laptop hard drive via USB? closed as off-topic by Nifle, Diago♦

I can't see how it does not relate to computer hardware.

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The correct answer to this question is is just Yes there are housings you can put your sata disk in to access it via USB. And that is as useful to as if I'm asking you Do you know what time is? And you answer "Yes". So besides giving specific hardware tips (and thus getting to shopping advice = OT) didn't think of anything useful to do with the question. – Nifle Oct 17 '10 at 12:27
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@Nifle: the answer “yes” is correct but unhelpful. AndrejaKo's answer is correct and helpful (it says that all laptops and desktops use the same SATA interface, which is not obvious (it's not true with IDE), and that any SATA-to-USB adapter will do, which may be obvious to you but not to everyone). For the “too easy” aspect, please see this question. – Gilles Oct 17 '10 at 12:58
Well AndrejaKo's answer didn't exist when I voted. In retrospect I may have been a bit grumpy. But neither I nor the system is perfect. – Nifle Oct 17 '10 at 13:01
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1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote

To be honest I should have closed it as Not a real question.

Both the answers it attracted specified that a google search for that exact term provided answers, and to be honest, the way it is phrased it really is just a Yes question. Although AndrejaKo's answer expands a little, it still provides a Google search.

Considering how quickly Super User is growing, the quality of questions are also as important. Basically the question answer would be Yes and the a list of casings to purchase, which makes it a shopping recommendation.

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I don't see how to reconcile this answer with that answer. Sure, it's an easy question. But AndrejaKo's answer provides extra information that may be useful and not known to the asker, namely that he could plug the disk directly into his desktop machine. To me, this shows the superiority of Q&A over searching for the asker: a Google search will turn up adapters, it won't reveal this alternate method. – Gilles Oct 17 '10 at 15:39
I agree, once you start banning easy questions, where do you stop? – Zach Aug 19 '11 at 0:40
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