Dell Hard Drive for use as External with Mac?

[farmerku]

So I have an old Dell computer that is not working and I would like to use the hard drive as an external for my new MacBook. I can do a basic google search for the how to on creating an external hard drive but I have read in a few places that I will not be able to use that external on my Mac? Or at least I can only read/copy information that already exists on that hard drive? Is there any way around this or anyway to reformat the drive so that it will work as an external for my Mac? Sorry if this is a common sense question but I am not all that computer savy!!! As always thanks for all of the help!

 

[CanadaRAM]

Choose an external Firewire or USB enclosure, such as one of the MacAlly line, make sure you choose the right internal connection type - IDE or SATA - for your drive. If it's an older Dell its more likely an IDE drive.

Install the drive, into the enclosure (2 monutes, 6 screws) then hook the enclosure up to the Mac.

You may or may not be able to read the contents, if you can, then copy to the Mac any data files you want to keep.

Open Disk Utility, select the drive and Erase (format) it to Mac HFS+. (this will destroy all the data on the drive)

Done.