Cables for Hard Disk Drive

Pennywise

Silly me - I should have known!

Just bought a new hard disk drive and "assumed" that the wiring/connectors would be the same, as I have previously installed new DVD drives without any problems at all.

So, the old HDD had three different wires plugged into it. The new HDD has completely different connectors. Nothing fits.

I have been looking at various supplier websites and am at a complete loss as to what cable/connector configurations I need.

HELP!!!

If it helps the new drive is a maxtor diamondmax21 SATA drive - http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/desktops/diamondmax/diamondmax_21/?vgnextrefresh=1

The PC is a bog-standard Dell Dimension.

Can anyone tell me exactly what I need and links to supplier websites would be good - I don't want to screw up again!

espresso

Pennywise wrote: »

The PC is a bog-standard Dell Dimension.

That is not a model number! Use PC wizzard to identify the hard drive currently fitted i.e. make/model. here

fwor

Presumably the original drive was IDE (also now often called PATA) - with a wide 40 or 80 wire ribbon cable?

You can actually get IDE to SATA converters from Ebay for only a few quid, but I have one and don't think it's very good - access times seem slow. Maplin sell them for a tenner, but I doubt they are any better.

One option would be to return the drive for exchange and get a compatible IDE drive instead, if your supplier will help.

If not, your best bet would be to get a PCI card SATA adapter for the new drive to plug into.

S0litaire

Sounds like your new drive is a "Sata" drive. it uses a small connector instead of the big ribbon cable your DVD drive took.

Do you have socket like these in your Dell : \|/ These 6 small rectangles


Does the hard drive look like this:
[IMG]Http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/2004/1018/interface.jpg[/IMG]

Pennywise

espresso wrote: »

That is not a model number! Use PC wizzard to identify the hard drive currently fitted i.e. make/model. here

This is all I can find from running that program:-

Model : IC35L090AVV207-0
Serial Number : VNVC02G3EAYUKT
Revision : V23OA66A

This is an original installation from Dell - the machine is a Dell Dimension 2400 - the current HDD is IDE.

Pennywise

S0litaire wrote: »

Sounds like your new drive is a "Sata" drive. it uses a small connector instead of the big ribbon cable your DVD drive took.

Do you have socket like these in your Dell : \|/ These 6 small rectangles


Does the hard drive look like this:
[IMG]Http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/2004/1018/interface.jpg[/IMG]

No there aren't anything like the 6 small rectangles on the motherboard.

Yes, the hard drive does have the 15 and 7 pin gold connectors as shown on the right of your picture, but not the 4 pin power connectors. It does have a 6 pin jumper socket in the middle.

tom9980

then you have a SATA drive i would take it back and ask for an IDE drive all other options cost money or require you to take a performance hit.

espresso

Pennywise wrote: »

This is all I can find from running that program:-

Model : IC35L090AVV207-0
Serial Number : VNVC02G3EAYUKT
Revision : V23OA66A

This is an original installation from Dell - the machine is a Dell Dimension 2400 - the current HDD is IDE.

Seems to be a 80GB IDE hard drive that you have, so unless there is also a SATA connector on the motherboard, you need to change it for an IDE.