first time building a pc... questions remain
Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:52 am
Hey all- I've been lurking a while, doing some research, and I have to say this site has really helped me think about computers differently, so I thank you all for being so informative. This is my first time building a desktop pc, which will be replacing my hairdryer of a laptop. The laptop's been acting strangely, making scary noises, and last time I turned it on, it was having trouble even booting. So I wanted to build a desktop to put my laptop's hard drive into it, then transfer all my data to another hard drive. (I know, I know, I should have backups, but poor busy college students don't always have the time and money to be religious about backups. Now that I work more, I can afford it.)
I received my motherboard yesterday (Asus P5B-E), and out of curiosity tried to fit the IDE cable to my laptop hard drive. It almost fits. Almost. Are there adapters that translate a 2.5" drive to a 3.5" cable, or is the motherboard only supporting a version of ATA too new to fit my drive? It's a 3-4 year old Toshiba MK6022GAX. I guess my real question is: how do I mount and use a 2.5" hard drive in a desktop ATX case?
Other components:
Antec P180 B-stock from Antec.com (is B-stock a bad idea? I figured with a case it'd be less mission-critical)
Seasonic S12-380
Core2Duo e6300
Gigabyte 7600GT passively cooled
Kingston memory that the Asus manual said would be compatible
Pioneer DVR-111D DVD burner (thank you, cdrfreaks.com)
Samsung T... haven't decided whether to get 400 gigs or 500.
I'll also be looking for a CPU heatsink and quiet fans after my next paycheck, so I'll probably be posting in the appropriate forum if I can't decide on one before then. If anyone has any comments/suggestions about my plan, let me know. Thanks![/b]
I received my motherboard yesterday (Asus P5B-E), and out of curiosity tried to fit the IDE cable to my laptop hard drive. It almost fits. Almost. Are there adapters that translate a 2.5" drive to a 3.5" cable, or is the motherboard only supporting a version of ATA too new to fit my drive? It's a 3-4 year old Toshiba MK6022GAX. I guess my real question is: how do I mount and use a 2.5" hard drive in a desktop ATX case?
Other components:
Antec P180 B-stock from Antec.com (is B-stock a bad idea? I figured with a case it'd be less mission-critical)
Seasonic S12-380
Core2Duo e6300
Gigabyte 7600GT passively cooled
Kingston memory that the Asus manual said would be compatible
Pioneer DVR-111D DVD burner (thank you, cdrfreaks.com)
Samsung T... haven't decided whether to get 400 gigs or 500.
I'll also be looking for a CPU heatsink and quiet fans after my next paycheck, so I'll probably be posting in the appropriate forum if I can't decide on one before then. If anyone has any comments/suggestions about my plan, let me know. Thanks![/b]