uncadonego on 5/6/2009 at 13:05
I don't want to risk opening this thing up and potentially ruining it without checking here first. After the Classic Thief Experience Contest, I ended up sending Melan a money order to pay for an external HD. It would have cost way too much to ship him the one I bought for a prize. That leaves me with an external HD. I'd like to convert it to an internal secondary drive. I'll give you some info:
TrekStor DataStation maxi m.u 320 GB 3.5" external HD
want it as secondary drive in a HP Compaq Presario AMD Athlon 64 processor 3400+ 1.81 GHz
Some are just HD's popped into a case, others have chips on the outside, etc and I heard opening them can ruin them.
Doable? Will I need a SATA plug? etc.
bikerdude on 5/6/2009 at 13:51
Quote Posted by uncadonego
* TrekStor DataStation maxi m.u 320 GB 3.5" external HD
* Will I need a SATA plug? etc.
That unit comes with both ethernet and USB ports, but as your connecting direct to your pc then you will need a USB cable - which the unit should have come with already...!!!
Microwave Oven on 5/6/2009 at 16:14
From what I can make out from the product info I've found for that model, it's just a plain ol' SATA hard drive in a box. It should be relatively simple to open the DataStation, then you'd just need to unplug and unmount the drive from the box and stuff it into your PC.
uncadonego on 5/6/2009 at 22:53
There's no Master/Slave switch on my HD. I don't know yet about the TrekStor one because I haven't taken it out of its case yet. Also, I only have one remaining slot and it looks different than the one my HD is in right now. Also, note the pic. Do I plug the second drive where I pointed? I'm lost here.
Inline Image:
http://www.3dgathome.com/theadams/cgi-bin/comp.jpgLarryG on 5/6/2009 at 23:28
Looks right. But you should pull your MB spec from the manufacturer to be sure. Who makes the HP Compaq Presario's MB? HP? or someone else? Whoever it is they should have the MB diagram online for you to check out.
Matthew on 9/6/2009 at 09:45
Is the empty bay 5.25" rather than 3.5"? I can't really tell from that pic.
The other drive will plug in where you have indicated, yes.
SATA drives don't have master / slave settings; they are all 'masters' after a fashion.
uncadonego on 10/6/2009 at 02:32
it is just above (since the comp is on its side, to the left) of the HD in there now. It's the only empty bay left. The others have card readers etc in them. Do you see the green plastic part? It has a "clip" on each side which holds pops down behind the HD screw. Notice the one above the HD though. The clip is more to the front of the tower, like it's for holding something else. I'm just wondering what will hold the HD in place.
I've added drives to older computers but nothing with XP yet. Just looked different.
Matthew on 10/6/2009 at 09:14
It's unusual, but IIRC HDDs usually have three screw locations, so the clips might latch on to one of the other screw locations. Worth a try, I suppose.
Renzatic on 10/6/2009 at 20:32
It looks like those other 5.25s have stuff plugged into them already. I see your media card reader up above, but you've got two other cables leading to something else. I'm thinking you might be out of luck there. And even if they are free slots, they're more than likely built to accommodate something the size of a floppy drive.
Though you're not totally without options. You can plug in a harddrive and leave it unmounted inside the computer. I've done that a few times myself. Whenever I gotta grab something off my old IDE storage drive, I just hook it up and leave it sitting up longways. It won't hurt it at all...as long as you don't accidentally jostle it while it's on.
uncadonego on 11/6/2009 at 13:33
Inline Image:
http://www.3dgathome.com/theadams/cgi-bin/motherboard.gifMy guess that I could plug in a second SATA pointed out by the arrows in the photo seems to be right, as this diagram confirms that plug is SATA2.
I don't want to break the seal on the external box if I can't be sure I can somehow keep it secured inside the tower though.
