In a message dated Sun., 10 Jul 2005 17:33, Donald DeWitt writes;
>>>Dear Members, I'm running a 4yr old Dell Dimension series 4550. All my
file=
s=20
(Word, photos, MP3s and etc.) are stored on a Western Digital Slave drive. =
I=20
recently acquired (new) a series 8400 Dell. When I attempted to install the=
=20
slave drive from the old computer into the new I found that the new compute=
r=20
has an ATA Master drive and that all the connections to it are unlike the=
=20
Western Digital connections that I'm use to seeing.=20
Question: Is there a way I can install my old Western Digital slave drive=
=20
into the new computer (as a slave) using adaptor wires? Would this be=20
practical? If not, what do you recommend?
=20
Thank You for your advice,
=20
Don DeWitt<<<
Your 8400 Dell is probably very similar to mine. The disk drive that has the
operating system on it uses SATA technology. There is probably a small, thin
(either red or blue) wire that connects the drive to the motherboard, plus
the power connecter. The power connecter probably looks familiar, but unless
you've seen SATA connectors, they are bound to look a little different. If
you have any optical drives, and it matters if you have one or two, then
that connector will more than likely look familiar. Heres the rub; your Dell
8400 has 4 connectors for SATA drives but only one for IDE devices. That
means if you have two optical drives in both of the top bays of your PC, you
will not be able to connect the old IDE drive to the motherboard without
puchasing an add-in card. If you only have one optical drive, you will be
able to connect the old drive onto that cable. You will more than likely
have to move the optical drive to the bottom 5.25 inch bay in order for the
connecters to reach the two drives because of the distance between the 3.5
and 5.25 inch bays. It can be done, you'll just have to set the optical
drive as slave (check to see if the jumpers are set to CS, or Cable Select)
and the HDD as Master on the one IDE channel (again checking the jumpers)
The drives will automatically assign themselves as Master/Slave with the
jumpers set to CS based on the position of the drive on the cable. The end
connector is Master, the connector in the middle is Slave. The PC will still
boot from the SATA drive, so you don't have to worry too much about jumper
settings being master or slave on the IDE devices. If your configuration is
vastly different than how I've described, write in with a detailed
description of what you see inside the case and I might be able to assist
further.
Chris Ryan
E-Mail: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
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