Need Help With External USB Drive

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
SATA only support one device at a time, so it must be set as master. That's the spec, not the fault of the IDE/SATA converter chip.

That's why you see 2x as many SATA connector on a typical setup as IDE/PATA.


SATA only supports one device. IDE supports two. A properly designed SATA to IDE bridge chip can support operating in slave or master mode, and one of them (the Silicon Image bridge) claims as much in their data sheet.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: chuckerants

Panda, everyone, is the PCI card that Brian linked to all I'll need? If not, please post a link as I really want to get this HD working.


You'll need to order that card and the $1.27 SATA power converter cable I linked to above if your drive doesn't have the "legacy power connector" on it (older drives had it, newer ones don't, so your drive probably doesn't have it).

When you get, all you'll need to do is install the card, install the drive, and connect the drive to the card with the SATA cable which is included with the card (Monoprice sells SATA cables as well if you think you might need extras), and connect the drive to the power connector with the SATA power converter cable you'll need to order separately.

Then boot up your computer and Windows should detect the card and ask for drivers which are on the CD which comes with the card. Then it should install them and detect the drive.

That should be all you need to do.

 

[chuckerants]

Thanks Brian.

I hope this does it. It'll sure be cheaper than a new PC.

 

[PandaBear]

Pretty much what Brian said, you need a PCI SATA card and if your HD doesn't have a legacy power port, then a SATA power cable.

 

[chuckerants]

Brain, Panda, it looks like the SATA PCI card and the power splitter did the trick. I was able to copy 30GBs with no crashing whatsoever.

Though on reboot, windows did give me a message that said the RAID was not recognized, but it booted just fine and recognized the new HD after it finished booting on its own.

Thanks again.

 

[brianl703]

I'd ordered the 4-port version of that card for my Linux box, it works great.

I just ordered another 4-port version of that card for my Optiplex GX260.

I also ordered a longer right-angle locking SATA cable because the way the Optiplex GX260 opens (like a suitcase), when you install a shorter cable (especially a straight cable) it might hit something and come loose as you close the case because it's not long enough to route it through the cable clips in the case.