New Hard Drive HELP!

from WinCustomize Forums
I am looking to buy a new hard drive, specifically, this hard drive. But, there is a snag, I am not sure that my motherboard will support this new hard drive's speed. Here you can find the default specifications of my computer. Does anyone know if the hard drive I want to purchase is compatible with my machine? Thanks for your comments!
6,055 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Drive:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

mother board:

2 SATA connectors Supports. 1 Serial ATA-150 disk drive on each connector

looks like a match to me.

you'll have to find a set of cables because thats an OEM drive and you don't get cables with those!
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Cool, glad to here it. What cables do you mean? There are a couple that connect to the drive.
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

You'll possibly need both, unless you already had them with your MoBo.

SATA ribbons and power connectors are different to the standard parallel IDE devices...

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
SATA ribbons and power connectors are different to the standard parallel IDE devices


But most SATA drives also have the older power connectors so that's not an issue as much as the data cable.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

But most SATA drives also have the older power connectors

That's simply a legacy/transitional thing...

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
SO, if you have a laptop with say an IDE hardrive and you buy an OEM, do you need cables to attach it or can you use what is already in place?
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
SO, if you have a laptop with say an IDE hardrive and you buy an OEM, do you need cables to attach it or can you use what is already in place?


Laptops do not require cables typically to connect hard drives. You just place the hard drive where your old one was and slide it into place.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That's simply a legacy/transitional thing


Yah, but I've bought several SATA devices and an SATA RAID card and the card came with power splitters that took 1 4-pin molex connector and split it into 2 of the new SATA connectors and all of the SATA hard drives I've seen have both the SATA power connectors and the molex connectors and they probably will for the forseeable future. Not that it will matter once more power supplies come with the SATA power connectors standard.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

SO, if you have a laptop with say an IDE hardrive and you buy an OEM, do you need cables to attach it or can you use what is already in place?

Remember to remove the "Jumper/Adapter" from the back of the old drive, and connect it to the new drive pins (paying attention to how it is connected on the old drive pins). It should be easy to identify the adapter, and the jumper setting by viewing the back of the old drive as soon as you remove it.

The jumper/adapter allows the drive to connect to the IDE bus adapter, and tells the MoBo what the drive is set to, which will in turn allow the drive to be recognized in the BIOS.

You will also need to create a "Primary" partition to enable recognition in BIOS (usually with a utility like "FDisk", PartitionMagic", or a manufacture supplied utility), and to allow the Windows OS installation disc to see the partition and format it for the OS. This utility will be run either via a floppy drive connected to the notebook, or by running the utility from CD - making sure to set the boot sequence to allow booting from the floppy or CD first.

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

and all of the SATA hard drives I've seen have both the SATA power connectors and the molex connectors and they probably will for the forseeable future.

Yes, that's what is meant by 'transitional'...

However, not ALL that I have seen have both.

Adapters will 'always' be available...but the two-choices-of-connector drives will definitely not...