Hard Drive ...Techie Questions

Raggie

Need some technical help..

I have been using Dell PCs for some time, currently using a 4300, with two Hard drives.. (for backup).. the hard drives are connetced via a ribon cable..

I have just taken delivery of a 9150.. from dell.

and i am looking to put my second hard drive (with data only no operating system) into the new unit..

The problem is the second unit uses a blue cable to connect the exisiting harddrive to the mother board.. it noes not use a ribon cable..

I know I need to go get one of these cables.. but here comes the dumb question..

whats it called?

I do not like walking into PC world and have some urk.. with zits look down on me...lol..

Thanks for your help...

Rex_Mundi

Is it a small flat cable? It sounds like it is a SATA cable.

moomintroll_3

It'll be a Serial ATA (SATA) cable, according to the spec on the dell website the 9150 uses SATA drives rather than PATA (Parallel ATA - the 'ribbon' cable).

HTH.
G

Rex_Mundi

This is what a SATA cable looks like (don't worry about the colour difference)..

Raggie

Thanks guys.. better to ask here.. than spend an hour on the phone to india..

mr_fishbulb

The motherboard on your new dell will probably have a spare IDE port to plug in your hard drive. It might only have one port which the CD/DVD drive will be on but you could add your hard drive in a a slave device on that cable.