A totally confused Jamax ask's: I have a Dell with a 80GB EIDE, 7200 RPM, ATA/100, Hard Drive, GX270. I wish to add an additional much larger drive for video editing. Will ATA or SATA drives work with my unit without drastic overhauls? If not what is required to make them work? Is it worth while to upgrade to one of them? If can use them will my current cables, etc. work? Will there be a huge difference with a ATA or SATA unit? Thank you.
http://www.scs.fsu.edu/classroom/Dell/gx270-spec.pdf If the above link refers to your PC then you will have no problem as long as the chipset drivers ar all up to date with the correct sata support. Just plug it in and away you go. You will need a sata serial cable and a 4 pin molex to sata power adaptor. There may also be a change in the BIOS required to enable the sata ports and the stop the additional drive from becoming the priority drive at boot up. Then just download the makers tool from the support pages to set the drive up on the PC.
The support link does relate to my unit how do I know if my chipset drivers are up to date and where do I get updates if needed? The unit was bought summer of 2003. How do I know if I have the correct SATA support and will I need to purchase a SATA power adapter? What is a 4 pin molex? Thank you again the fog is starting to clear with your help. Jahmax
Heres an example of the power acble you'll need if the psu doesn't already have the sata power connectors. The 4 pin molex is the one on the right hand side, the sata power in the left one. http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=57666 If you look under device manager from the control panel/system. Then the sata controller should be listed under scsi/raid controllers. If you don't see it, go into the BIOS and make sure that any sata ports are enabled. depending on what chipset the board uses, will determine how the BIOS refers to the sata ports, but having a look around it should be obvious when you find them. It looks like your board uses the Intel 865G chipset. http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/865g/index.htm Drivers etc... http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-009241.htm
everything you said about my unit is correct and I took a look at my device manager and nothing relating to scsi/raid controllers is present. I am leary of going into BIOS unless there is an easy non risk way of doing this I have created problems before by messing around. Is there a drive type that can be installed with no huge adjustment issues? Microsoft says there can be identification problems when 2 unlike hard drives are installed. Would a PATA drive be a simple bolt in solution to my issue? Thanks again your help is much appreciated it makes me see how little I know. JAHMAX
You should be able to just mount a second IDE drive in the chassis and then connect it to the existing ribbon cable connected to your current drive C:\. Your current drive will either be set to CS or master and should be on the second from end connector on the ribbon cable. Connect the new one on the connector at the end, there will be only two connectors and one already has your drive connected. You'll need to set the new drive to CS or slave, there will be a little jumper on the end which can be moved, there will be a diagram on the unit to indicate which position is CS, Master or Slave. You need to get the drives set differently if using master/slave or there will be contention problems when they are powered up. http://www.pctechguide.com/tutorials/FLDrive_ConnectCDRW.htm
