Computer hardware help needed please

DaniB

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
3,479
I couldn't figure out where to put this and decided on this forum. It's budget related as I don't want to pay someone to do something I'm capable. I just need a couple of answers... Hopefully someone more use to dealing with the insides of a computer can confirm. Please!

One car family here. I cannot drive out to a computer store today. And even if I do tomorrow, they will want to keep the computer.

Question 1
I have 8 Serial ATA connectors on the motherboard. 6 of which are currently in use (2 optical drives, 2 hard drives, 2 external connections). 2 other ports which are different colours (orange & white). According to the M/B manual, I can still attach a SATA signal cable & hard drive, it's just that these allow me to use Drive Xpert Technology. I don't care about that technology and the 3rd hard drive will only stay in that slot long enough to install Windows 7 and copy my data over from another hard drive, which is crashing.

I can use this connector port, correct?

Question 2
The current SATA power connector cable is already plugged into 2 hard drives. It looks like there's another bunch of these same cables, held together with a cable tie. Instead of cutting the cable tie off and using one of these, I was hoping to do something different. After all is said and done, I won't need these extra power connectors loose as I will only end up with 2 hard drives afterwards.

I have another SATA power connector cable loose in my M/B box. But it's too short and I cannot figure out where to plug it into the M/B anyways. However, it has a male end to it. The ones in my computer - I see two that have a female end to them. Can I plug them together (like an extension cord) so that it will reach the HD bay and power the HD? Again, it would only be for a day or so. Once I get the data off the original HD, I will reconnect using the original cables off the bad HD to the new HD.

I'm attaching a couple of photos in case I did not describe the second question info correctly...

satapowerconnectorcable.jpg


satapowerconnector.jpg
 
Yes you can plug that male cable plug you are holding into any matching female cable plug. YOu can make up "extension cords" using any combination of power cables that fit together.

You can use any of the SATA drive sockets on the motherboard.

I suggest you cut apart the cable ties to free up other cable plugs that appear to be simply held coiled up by the cable ties. Those other cable plugs are meant to be used.

For a short period of time a hard drive can be set upright and held upright by the cables. It could also be laid down on a piece of cardboard so the underside with printed circuit lines does not touch anything made of metal.
 
Here's what I know - the Drive Xpert ports can be used 3 different ways - two of the ways are RAID options that require 2 hard drives, and the third way is as a normal SATA drive. You may have to go into the BIOS to make sure the correct mode is set. To use a Drive Xpert port as a normal SATA drive, I believe you need to plug the drive into the orange port. I'd say plug it into the orange port and boot it up and see if it recognizes it. If not, then go into the BIOS and look for a setting for those ports.

For your second question, yes, you can take a SATA power cable that has a male Molex connector and plug it into a female Molex connector from your power supply and use that to power the SATA drive. You wouldn't connect the power cable to the motherboard. I use several Molex to SATA power cables in my setup. It's the same thing as the SATA specific connections coming from the power supply.
 
You've been given great advice so far, so I'd just echo that yes, you can use the SATA connector on the board, and yes, you can use the SATA power adapter to connect to the four-prong power supply, sort of like an extension cord.

I wouldn't worry too much about where the temporary drive (from which you're copying) is setup in the box... for the temporary nature of it, were I doing this myself, I wouldn't even bother putting the case back together, knowing I was going to remove the extra drive after copying.
 

Wonderful, thanks for the replies! :thumbsup2

Once my after school kids are gone and mine are settled down, I'll give this a shot. Pizza & a movie for the kids tonight so I can get this done. Wonder if I can get DH to take the kids garage sale hunting in the morning. It takes hours to re-install all the updates, drivers and software.
 
Thank you, thank you! This worked perfectly. I didn't have to spend money paying someone else to install my HD. And even better, I didn't have to go computerless for a few days. I would have hated that more than paying someone to install the HD! :lmao:

I'm so glad I purchased Windows 7 along with the new HD. I can't believe how easy it was to install it. And I didn't have to spend hours downloading updates and installing drivers. It automatically installed drivers for all my devices! And I didn't even have to format the new HD first. I should have switched from XP ages ago!

Thankfully my computer & internet runs *fast* again. It was so slow the past 2 months I had to keep gritting my teeth so I wouldn't :badpc:. There was just no point in backing up, formatting & re-installing when I was purchasing a new drive in 2-3 months.

After a complete HD format and re-installing of XP, I would have normally ran 2 disks that were in my M/B box but I'm not sure I even need to at this point. Should I?
ATI Radeon graphics and the Intel P45 Chipset Support.

Now to figure out what to use for e-mail since there seems to be no Outlook Express. :rolleyes:
 
OMG - I hate Windows Live Mail! :headache:

Over 2 hours later and I still have not successfully imported our e-mail accounts correctly. The folders (ones I created) come through correctly, but nothing that was sitting in our inboxes... :sad2:
 
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