How to determine a SATA or IDE connector?

I have an old laptop bought about 3 years ago. For a long period of usage it was almost damage, the only thing that is working and can be reuse is the hard disk, the 256mb of ram and the sound card. The rest are totally out of order and unusable.
Now, I want to make a portable hard disk using my old one. And I’m planning to buy an enclosure case; the only problem is I don’t know what kind of connector needed for my hard disk. As far as I know there are two types of connector available on the market right now the SATA and IDE. How can I determine if my Laptop hard disk uses SATA or IDE connector?
Please also correct me for the terminology that I’ve used. I’m also confused about the difference between a hard disk and a hard drive.
