first time building a pc... questions remain

beatgeek · Post by **beatgeek** » 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]

Anvar · Post by **Anvar** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:02 am

That sounds very strange, the IDE standard has been around so long that Moses backed up the 10 commandments on his IDE drive (slight exaggeration there.)

I'm not aware of any differences in the size of the cable from 2.5 to 3.5 inch drives. Are you sure you didn't try to plug the floppy cable into the drive?

Anvar · Post by **Anvar** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:08 am

And now, just to contradict myself completely I found this.

Have a look at the pictures and see if your drive looks like this.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:35 am

I'm not aware of any differences in the size of the cable from 2.5 to 3.5 inch drives

For SATA 2.5" HDD all cables are the same, but for ATA/IDE you will need an adapter, they can be found cheaply on Ebay etc.

Anvar · Post by **Anvar** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:09 am

jaganath wrote:
I'm not aware of any differences in the size of the cable from 2.5 to 3.5 inch drives
For SATA 2.5" HDD all cables are the same, but for ATA/IDE you will need an adapter, they can be found cheaply on Ebay etc.

I'll just shut up and go back to my box now.

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:36 am

Newegg link with pictures, I have one and use it occationally if have to repair / back up laptop. Just plug in to IDE cable and is detected just like any 3.5" HDD. Also comes with rails to mount 2.5" drive in 3.5" bay. One adapter I had had a full set of pins and I had to break one off to match the blanked out hole in most IDE cables.
Seb

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:00 am

Anvar wrote:
jaganath wrote:
I'm not aware of any differences in the size of the cable from 2.5 to 3.5 inch drives
For SATA 2.5" HDD all cables are the same, but for ATA/IDE you will need an adapter, they can be found cheaply on Ebay etc.
I'll just shut up and go back to my box now.

That's OK, you were half-right.

beatgeek · Post by **beatgeek** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:44 pm

ah, thanks for the info. one more thing to order