hard drive again

[Stewart]

just to update; I bought a 1GB ram to-day and it installed no bother bowever
the shop sold me an internal hard drive with a "Sata" connection instead of
serial so I shall probably have to take the whole thing back to them and get
them to sort it out. I had taken the ilustration of the hard drive with me
and showed them that as well as saying that I had bought the power unit from
them with the ribbon connections.
They tell me I can get an adaptor but there does not seem to be anywhere in
the motherboard to connect to. I have looked at Maplin's site but do not
see a serial to sata adaptor.
Will keep group undated.

 

[Char Jackson]

just to update; I bought a 1GB ram to-day and it installed no bother bowever
the shop sold me an internal hard drive with a "Sata" connection instead of
serial so I shall probably have to take the whole thing back to them and get
them to sort it out. I had taken the ilustration of the hard drive with me
and showed them that as well as saying that I had bought the power unit from
them with the ribbon connections.
They tell me I can get an adaptor but there does not seem to be anywhere in
the motherboard to connect to. I have looked at Maplin's site but do not
see a serial to sata adaptor.
Will keep group undated.

Give us the make and model of your motherboard if you want
confirmation of your board's capabilities. You can get that
information by running the free Belarc Advisor.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
http://www.belarc.com/Programs/advisor.exe

If the board doesn't natively include any SATA ports, you can probably
add a PCI card that provides multiple ports. Alternatively, if you
have a free IDE port, (what you incorrectly called serial), then
exchanging the drive will also work.

 

[Tim Slattery]

just to update; I bought a 1GB ram to-day and it installed no bother bowever
the shop sold me an internal hard drive with a "Sata" connection instead of
serial

SATA is *Serial* ATA, so your motherboard probably uses the older
Parallel ATA (PATA) connections.

so I shall probably have to take the whole thing back to them and get
them to sort it out. I had taken the ilustration of the hard drive with me
and showed them that as well as saying that I had bought the power unit from
them with the ribbon connections.
They tell me I can get an adaptor but there does not seem to be anywhere in
the motherboard to connect to.

It would be a SATA to PATA adapter. I don't really understand your
last line. There's got to be some kind of socket on your MB to connect
a disk to. Either the smaller SATA or the longer PATA socket.

 

[Stewart]

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7N400-L; as I said I bought this from
Silicon in Edinburgh and to-day I showed them the illustration of the
motherboard before I bought the hard drive - a Seagate Serial 250GB
UDMA300.
My Hiper power unit has 2 Sata connectors, they are flat in shape and I have
fitted one of them to the flat pin of the hard drive, their colour wires are
Orange, Black, Red, Black and Yellow.
I do not seem to have connectors for the other 2 sockets on the hard drive;
one of these has 4 flat pins and would need a boxed female connector, the
other has 7 or 8 flat pins along the wall of a connector that would have to
be fairly flat with a small cut upwards at one end.
I do not know if that information will be of any assistance.
Thank you.

 

[Stewart]

Tim, I am a bit lost as you will see with this; if you go to this site
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1672
you will see a motherboard like mine.
All 4 connectors are in use,

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

The other (longer) flat connector is for power. The drive won't work
without power.

Find a suitable connector coming from your power supply. If your power
supply doesn't have the flat one, use one of the huge 4-pin connectors
(called Molex) on the white connector.

You'll be a *lot* better off with the SATA power connector - the Molex
connectors usually are extraordinarily hard to remove.

Other have pointed out what SATA means

 

[Spring Sprung]

It's a PATA only board - it uses harddrive conntectors that look like this:

http://data-recovery.contentquake.com/files/2008/03/pata-connector.jpg

If it had used SATA, - it doesn't -the connector would look like this:

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1276253/2/istockphoto_1276253_sata_connector.jpg

Here's a picture of the two types together:

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u73/Matthew_Morrison/115629-2206P164_1B.jpg

Anyway, your board has only PATA (IDE) connectors.

If the harddrive is a SATA harddrive you need this in order to connect the
harddrive:

http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/393891/6685853/0/1219205655/IDE_to_SATA_ADAPTER.jpg

Also, if your harddrive has only a SATA style power plug and your power
supply doesn't have SATA style power plugs you may need one of these:

http://www.satacables.com/assets/images/7inch-sata-power-adapter.jpg

The above said, you might just return the harddrive in exchange for an PATA
harddrive - but be forewarned, PATA drives may have gotten pricier in your
area since demand has dropped.

Tim, I am a bit lost as you will see with this; if you go to this site
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1672
you will see a motherboard like mine.
All 4 connectors are in use,

 

[Char Jackson]

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7N400-L; as I said I bought this from
Silicon in Edinburgh and to-day I showed them the illustration of the
motherboard before I bought the hard drive - a Seagate Serial 250GB
UDMA300.
My Hiper power unit has 2 Sata connectors, they are flat in shape and I have
fitted one of them to the flat pin of the hard drive, their colour wires are
Orange, Black, Red, Black and Yellow.
I do not seem to have connectors for the other 2 sockets on the hard drive;
one of these has 4 flat pins and would need a boxed female connector, the
other has 7 or 8 flat pins along the wall of a connector that would have to
be fairly flat with a small cut upwards at one end.
I do not know if that information will be of any assistance.
Thank you.

According to the picture on page 8 of your motherboard's manual, there
are two SATA (data) connectors located between IDE 0/1 and IDE 2/3.
Use either one of them (SATA-0 might be preferred) to connect your
SATA data cable, and use either of the SATA power connectors as well.
Your drive may have come with a SATA data cable. That's it, no jumpers
to worry about. The drive should be recognized the next time you power
up.

http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_7n400pro2_e.pdf

 

[Char Jackson]

According to the picture on page 8 of your motherboard's manual, there
are two SATA (data) connectors located between IDE 0/1 and IDE 2/3.
Use either one of them (SATA-0 might be preferred) to connect your
SATA data cable, and use either of the SATA power connectors as well.
Your drive may have come with a SATA data cable. That's it, no jumpers
to worry about. The drive should be recognized the next time you power
up.

http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_7n400pro2_e.pdf

Oops, your manual covers multiple motherboard models and I looked at
the wrong page. Sorry, but it looks like your specific board does NOT
have SATA connectors after all.

Others have correctly pointed out your options. Either exchange the
drive for an IDE (PATA) model or get the necessary adapters.

 

[Spring Sprung]

The specs from the link he gave to the website didn't include SATA, but the
PDF says there's two .. he will have to check. If he has SATA connectors,
all's good.

 

[Spring Sprung]

OK, there's probably no SATA connectors on the mobo.

 

[philo]

just to update; I bought a 1GB ram to-day and it installed no bother bowever
the shop sold me an internal hard drive with a "Sata" connection instead of
serial so I shall probably have to take the whole thing back to them and get
them to sort it out. I had taken the ilustration of the hard drive with me
and showed them that as well as saying that I had bought the power unit from
them with the ribbon connections.
They tell me I can get an adaptor but there does not seem to be anywhere in
the motherboard to connect to. I have looked at Maplin's site but do not
see a serial to sata adaptor.
Will keep group undated.

SATA is serial ATA
so you should be fine unless you have an old IDE/ATA mobo

 

[Patrick Keenan]

just to update; I bought a 1GB ram to-day and it installed no bother
bowever the shop sold me an internal hard drive with a "Sata" connection
instead of serial so I shall probably have to take the whole thing back to
them and get them to sort it out. I had taken the ilustration of the hard
drive with me and showed them that as well as saying that I had bought the
power unit from them with the ribbon connections.
They tell me I can get an adaptor but there does not seem to be anywhere
in the motherboard to connect to. I have looked at Maplin's site but do
not see a serial to sata adaptor.
Will keep group undated.

As others have pointed out, your motherboard apparently does not support
serial - which *is* SATA - drives.

You want PATA, sometimes called IDE, drives. These drives have a 40-pin
connector, which looks nothing like the SATA connector.

And there's really only the two types of drive connector.

Take this one back, and say you need the other type. That's pretty much
all you need to understand, at least until you get the drive home and have
to set the jumpers.

HTH
-pk

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Stewart.

Here is my motherboard:
http://www.epox.com/showimage.asp?ID=EP-MF570SLI

It's 3 years old and the maker, EPoX, has gone out of business, but this
photo clearly illustrates the difference between PATA and SATA connectors.

On this mobo, there is ONE 40-pin PATA connector, turned vertically near the
left edge and colored yellow. (Not the yellow floppy drive connector along
the bottom edge.) This Parallel ATA connector type has been called IDE for
a dozen years or so. The mobo also has SIX SATA connectors, all grouped
near the bottom edge, just below the large square fan. Note that these
connectors are quite different. There's no way to confuse PATA connectors
with SATA connectors! The motherboard you've pointed to has NO SATA
connectors at all that I can see. Just 2 or 4(?) PATA connectors; 2 of the
4 are probably for floppy drives or optical drives.

The cables to the drives also are quite different. No way to confuse SATA's
narrow 5/8" cables with PATA's 2" wide ones. Power connectors and cables
are different, too.

That's definitely the right solution. And it would be a good idea to take
along a friend who knows what a SATA cable should look like. And take along
your HDD, not just a photo of it, to be sure that you can connect both data
and power cables.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Char Jackson]

Hi, Stewart.

Here is my motherboard:
http://www.epox.com/showimage.asp?ID=EP-MF570SLI

On this mobo, there is ONE 40-pin PATA connector, turned vertically near the
left edge and colored yellow. (Not the yellow floppy drive connector along
the bottom edge.) This Parallel ATA connector type has been called IDE for
a dozen years or so. The mobo also has SIX SATA connectors, all grouped

There seem to be two more SATA connectors (for a total of 8) up
between the card slots. Good to know in case you've got the first 6
populated and need more.

near the bottom edge, just below the large square fan. Note that these
connectors are quite different. There's no way to confuse PATA connectors
with SATA connectors! The motherboard you've pointed to has NO SATA
connectors at all that I can see. Just 2 or 4(?) PATA connectors; 2 of the
4 are probably for floppy drives or optical drives.

IDE/PATA can't be used for floppy drives, but they can be mixed and
matched between hard drives and optical drives. No difference between
those two drive types.

That's definitely the right solution. And it would be a good idea to take
along a friend who knows what a SATA cable should look like. And take along
your HDD, not just a photo of it, to be sure that you can connect both data
and power cables.

Totally agreed.

 

[R. C. White]

HI, Char.

There seem to be two more SATA connectors (for a total of 8)

Yes, there are two eSATA connectors for external HDs, but I didn't want to
add more complications into the mix. Besides, I've never used eSATA.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Stewart]

Thanks everybody, I am getting there.
Took the drive back to-day and they changed it for the correct type so now
fitted and ready to go.
I am typing this on laptop as still deciding how to format disk etc.
I have looked up the maxtor and western digital hard drive info to see how
the jumpers should be set; I want the new drive to be the master and old one
to be slave.
I am waiting for my son to advice me on setting up the new drive.
Obviously the old drive has always been the C drive and I am not sure when
formatting the new drive whether to call it C or D - my cd drives would then
become E and F.
The problem with that is that all the programmes etc in the old drive are
filed under C - something.
Once I have Windows7 up and running I shall let you know - it has been a
learning process thanks to you.

 

[Stewart]

Question answered, I am setting the new drive as slave and then install
Windows 7 on it, later on will change start up order.

 

[Char Jackson]

HI, Char.


Yes, there are two eSATA connectors for external HDs, but I didn't want to
add more complications into the mix. Besides, I've never used eSATA.

RC

Actually, they are plain SATA, not eSATA.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Char.

You probably are right. As I said, I've never used them. Someone long ago
commented they were eSATA and I never questioned it. Especially since my
User's Manual says that these two "optional" connectors "enable you to
connect Serial ATA HDDs or optical drives type with e-SATA." The wording
for the first 6 connectors is identical - but without those last 2 words. I
just now took the cover off and looked at the mobo: they sure look like the
other SATA connectors to me. ;^}

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64