External hard disk question

  • Thread starter Thread starter jkneese
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J

jkneese

I bought a 500 GB Western Digital SATA / PATA drive to replace what I
thought was a bad drive on my second computer. Since that was not the
problem, is there any way I can use the new drive as an external USB drive
on my primary (working) computer? If yes, what do I need to buy and do?

Thanks,
Jay
 
First thing you need to do is clarify what you have, there is no such thing
as a SATA/PATA hard drive, they are 2 different technologies, it is either
one or the other, not both.
 
David B. said:
First thing you need to do is clarify what you have, there is no such
thing as a SATA/PATA hard drive, they are 2 different technologies, it is
either one or the other, not both.
Click to expand...

I thought so, too, but the instructions described methods for hooking up the
drive as either a SATA or a PATA. At any rate, the drive was originally
bought as a SATA and is described as such on the box.
 
jkneese said:
I thought so, too, but the instructions described methods for hooking up
the drive as either a SATA or a PATA. At any rate, the drive was
originally bought as a SATA and is described as such on the box.
Click to expand...
What you need is a USB disk enclosure which has an interface that is correct
for your drive. I would start looking for this enclosure on newegg or
tigerdirect.

I bought mine at CompUSA, but they went broke.

Jim
 
I thought so, too, but the instructions described methods for hooking up the
drive as either a SATA or a PATA. At any rate, the drive was originally
bought as a SATA and is described as such on the box.
Click to expand...

Reconsider the instructions. You may find Western Digital provides
uniformly with all drives the two sets of instruction for connecting the
two types of drives. This would be cheaper than bundling the single
appropriate instructions with every separate drive.
 
As Jim said, just buy a USB enclosure that supports SATA hard drives and
your in business!
 
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