Replacing iMac w/Lion hard drive

hello all!

i'm frequent visitor, first time poster. i've been bailed out of countless jams mac forum, i'm stuck in 1 haven't found answer (yet).

question is, replaced hard drive on imac lion, unfortunately didn't put off thinking mac wouldn't ever fail on me. had year , months out of warranty, purchased new hard drive , installed it, question though have absolutely way of getting on mac prior hard drive failure (photos, programs, documents, etc), know can use internet recover osx on there steps can take documents or programs since didn't use time capsule or up.

in advance.

 

does old hdd still function (spin up, make noise running)? have enclosure 3.5" s-ata hdds or can one?

 

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