New Hard Drives??

  • Thread starter Thread starter dachay2tnr
  • Start date Start date
dachay2tnr

dachay2tnr

One Hit Wonder
A friend purchased a new Dell computer. Last night I helped him set it up. We wanted to take the hard drive from his old computer and install it as a slave in the new one.

However, when I opened the case, the new hard drive was not connected via an IDE ribbon cable. It was on some type of cable that looked almost like a lamp cord and went directly to the MoBo. There was no secondary plug on the cable either. I have never seen anything like this before. Does anyone know anything about it?

We got around the problem temporarily by disconnecting the CD and using that IDE cable for his HD. However, there should be a way to hook it up on the Primary IDE, right? As of now there is only the single IDE cable, and it is used for a CD-RW and a DVD.
 
dachay2tnr said:
A friend purchased a new Dell computer. Last night I helped him set it up. We wanted to take the hard drive from his old computer and install it as a slave in the new one.

However, when I opened the case, the new hard drive was not connected via an IDE ribbon cable. It was on some type of cable that looked almost like a lamp cord and went directly to the MoBo. There was no secondary plug on the cable either. I have never seen anything like this before. Does anyone know anything about it?

We got around the problem temporarily by disconnecting the CD and using that IDE cable for his HD. However, there should be a way to hook it up on the Primary IDE, right? As of now there is only the single IDE cable, and it is used for a CD-RW and a DVD.
Click to expand...

Christiann's right; that's SATA. You should go to your nearest computer store, and buy another EIDE cable for the second hard drive. Keep in mind it will be slower transmission wise than the stock SATA drive in the Dell.

You should still have 2 EIDE ports supporting up to four devices, so you can use the CDRW on one channel, and the secondary hard drive on the other. Leave the stock Dell SATA where it's at.
 
OK, thanks guys, makes sense.

So, can I hook up 5 devices? 2 on the primary and 2 on the secondary IDE controllers, plus the one on the SATA?

Also, can I connect a second SATA drive? And, if so, I presume the other hard drive has to be designed for SATA. IOW I'm guessing I can't use an IDE hard drive on a SATA controller.
 
dachay2tnr said:
can I connect a second SATA drive? And, if so, I presume the other hard drive has to be designed for SATA. IOW I'm guessing I can't use an IDE hard drive on a SATA controller.
Click to expand...
I expect your computer to have another SATA controller. Furthermore there are converters available to connect your older hard drive to a SATA controller.
But converters cost money so I would just check if there is a second IDE controller on the motherboard like Polaris20 suggested.
 
Thanks, Christiaan. That's what I plan to do. The questions were really more for my general education about SATA drives rather than any alternate plans.
 
New hard drives

I have a new drive with an ata card. do I need the card to run it? or will it also plug into an IDE type interface?
 
SATA

Hey...

As you know too well, I am in the process of building my first computer on my own.

I have the NF7-S motherboard and noticed a sort of adapter came with it, which appears to allow an IDE cable to go into something else, (which might make it SATA?) I don't know.

Anyway...my real question is, is SATA the best way to go with a DAW? because my biggest question in building this DAW has been in how to set up the hard drives optimally for recording purposes.

I really need help with this,as I've read conflicting opinions, but from NON-musicians.

Can I set my hard drives up on one IDE channel and call it good? By that I mean, master HD to IDE1, and second hard drive set to slave on that same IDE1?

What' I'm trying to accomplish with the dual hard drives is to have OS and applications on one hard drive and my audio data on the second.

Thanks a million.

Julia
 
Hard drive decisions

I'm putting my own unit together right now too and have a sata 80gb and a ide 120 maxtor. I plan on running the os (win 2k) on the 80 and save the files to the 120. Is there a better way to do it? ABIT-IC7 - p4 2.6
 
Re: SATA

Julia said:
Hey...

As you know too well, I am in the process of building my first computer on my own.

I have the NF7-S motherboard and noticed a sort of adapter came with it, which appears to allow an IDE cable to go into something else, (which might make it SATA?) I don't know.

Anyway...my real question is, is SATA the best way to go with a DAW? because my biggest question in building this DAW has been in how to set up the hard drives optimally for recording purposes.

I really need help with this,as I've read conflicting opinions, but from NON-musicians.

Can I set my hard drives up on one IDE channel and call it good? By that I mean, master HD to IDE1, and second hard drive set to slave on that same IDE1?

What' I'm trying to accomplish with the dual hard drives is to have OS and applications on one hard drive and my audio data on the second.

Thanks a million.

Julia
Click to expand...

Whatever you do, try to set your OS drive and audio drive on separate channels.

I don't see how anyone would tell you SATA's not good for audio. It's slightly faster than IDE, and it's easier to configure, with thinner, easier to manage cables. If there's a drawback, I haven't heard one yet.

They're not the be all end all must have technology of the year, but they're better than EIDE.
 
SATA vs. IDE

You can have one hard drive on an IDE controller and one on a SATA controller? I didnt' realize that.

I have one 80gig EIDE hard drive...I'd be happy to get a SATA drive as my second drive if it's advisable for a DAW.

Is it?

That would free up IDE2 for CDburner and DVD burner.
 
I'm confused

after a quick look at my bios instructions it looks like I can run 2 SATA on one channel and my two IDE removable drives (dvd,cdrw)on the other. It doesn't seem like I can run a SATA and IDE on the same channel. With only two channels available in any configuration. Does this make sense? :confused:
 
SATA

hi, t-chance...

what I'm in the process of doing as we type is setting my CD burner as an ATAPI SATA device. Using the adapter that came with my motherboard, I'm sending the CD Burner to the SATA controller (very simple to do), and that will leave both IDE controllers for separate hard drives. I've read that this is optimal for DAW setup. I hope it's true. :)

I'll certainly consider opposing opinions if anyone has one.

Oh...and CHristiian, if you're out there...my G400 arrived and it seems great. Refurbished, but for 33bux including shipping, who can question it? THanks so much for your advice in this regard and others.

Julia
 
Thanks Julia

I never thought of hooking up my cd's to the SATA drive. I may have to go all SATA. I can always put that 120 in my old box, That's only got one HD now. I guess I'll need to get another SATA hard drive.
Regards, Tom
 
Using the cd burner on sata frees the pci bus when recording because you won't typically use the cd burner during recording. The pci throughput is very important to keep clean, nothing or as little as possible using it as you want your pci audio card to have as much of the bus available to it. This holds true for AMD machines on nforce platforms more so than intel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top