>That looks pretty cool, I'm going to get it for some future problem I'm sure I'll have, but for now I decided to copy his data onto a CD, formatted the quirky drive (used a USB/IDE/SATA External Enclosure to do that from my laptop), and will mail it back for him to install the OS on his PC directly. If the drive still flakes out, then I'll send him some links to good external drives. <g> The big deal was getting his data off safely, which I did, but I thought it would be bonus if I could easily get his OS up and running too.

Not quite sure you can do that easily with Windowses. It insists on its own drive letters, and when you return the drive into the mother hen machine, who knows which letter it will have there. So you could install the OS on it as a G:, and it may be a C: when it gets there... and you can only guess how many crucial system components use absolute paths welded into the registry.