1st time SATA HD Install question.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bonnie Peebles
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Bonnie Peebles

I have a new sata HD I would like to install into my current system.
The system has an IDE drive currently and hook ups for either 2 or 4
Sata drives.

Do I have to mess with jumper settings for the SATA drive?
Just curious of what to expect BEFORE I pop the HD Box open and
realize the job is more then I expected.

Thanks
Bonnie
 
Bonnie said:
I have a new sata HD I would like to install into my current system.
The system has an IDE drive currently and hook ups for either 2 or 4
Sata drives.

Do I have to mess with jumper settings for the SATA drive?
Just curious of what to expect BEFORE I pop the HD Box open and
realize the job is more then I expected.

Thanks
Bonnie
Click to expand...

For SATA, jumpers come into play if you are having trouble.
Otherwise, just plug it in and use it.

One jumper position, will control whether the cable runs at 1.5Gbit/sec
or 3Gbit/sec. In cases where the drive does not negotiate properly, you
can use that jumper, to "force" the drive to run at 1.5Gbit/sec.

There could also be another jumper position, which changes a "spread
spectrum" setting. There might be a hardware combination that does not
work well, and needs that disabled too. Try googling on "SATA" and
"spread spectrum", to see how common that is. Spread spectrum is a
hardware feature that reduces radio interference from the cable.
The spread spectrum function is not essential to making the hardware
work. It just helps with FCC compliance.

The disk manufacturer's site is the best place to find info about
standard or optional jumper positions. The label affixed to the drive
will have a subset of all possible info on it. The label is not complete.
The website may make jumper info hard to find. At least the last time
I looked for comprehensive jumper info, I had trouble finding it.

Sometimes the best info, is in something like "OEM manual" for the
drive. Some of those documents are over a hundred pages long, and they
have two or three pages on jumper settings. If a small web page is not
available with good jumper info, sometimes you have to dig around and
find the manual/technical spec, to get all the info. Not all drives
have a downloadable manual.

Other things that might be useful - at least Service Pack 1 for WinXP.
That has a default Microsoft driver that works with some chipsets, for
SATA.

Paul
 
I have a new sata HD I would like to install into my current system.
The system has an IDE drive currently and hook ups for either 2 or 4
Sata drives.
Click to expand...

Hi Bonnie,

Are you perhaps confusing IDE with SATA? If your system has two IDE
channels it can support four IDE devices. Each IDE channel supports two
IDE devices (2 channels x 2 devices per channel = 4 IDE devices total).

See http://www.directron.com/patasata.html for some pictures of each type.

You need to have both SATA data connectors on your motherboard and SATA
power cables on your power supply.

There should be a fixed number of SATA connectors on your motherboard, thus
my confusion with your reference to 2 or 4 SATA drives. Can you tell us
the make/model of the computer and the motherboard make/model?

If you find that you do not have SATA capability with your motherboard, you
can still use the hard drive by purchasing a SATA to IDE adapter, but those
can be problematic. They require some extra space behind the hard drive
and they tend to fall off easily. If that happens with power connected to
the adapter, you could damage the adapter.

Here is an example of a SATA to IDE adapter:
http://www.addonics.com/products/io/adsaide.asp
Do I have to mess with jumper settings for the SATA drive?
Just curious of what to expect BEFORE I pop the HD Box open and
realize the job is more then I expected.
Thanks
Bonnie
Click to expand...

SATA drives do not have or need a jumper for Master/Slave as PATA (IDE)
drives do.

There may be jumpers on the SATA drive. Some drives come with a jumper
that is used for factory testing. You can ignore those. The drive may
also come with a jumper to force Generation I/SATA I (150 MB/sec) data
transfer rate. If your motherboard only has SATA I support and your drive
has one of these jumpers, you should move the jumper to the SATA I
position. For newer motherboard and hard drives that are SATA II
compliant, you should not need to change any jumpers.

Are there jumpers on your SATA drive? What make/model is your hard drive?
 
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