Anyone Good With Electronics?
My WD external hard drive is playing up on me and I need some quick advice. Basically there's no power getting to the hard drive.
It powers from the mains and goes through an AC adaptor. If I detach the cable (from the AC adapor to the hard drive) the light on the AC adaptor stays lit. As soon as I plug it into the hard drive the light goes out.
Whereabouts is the fault likely to be? Thanks
It powers from the mains and goes through an AC adaptor. If I detach the cable (from the AC adapor to the hard drive) the light on the AC adaptor stays lit. As soon as I plug it into the hard drive the light goes out.
Whereabouts is the fault likely to be? Thanks
Replies
Does anyone know how to do this exactly? From what I gather I need to connect it via a SATA cable. I've got three SATA ports in the PC, each with a cable coming out of, one to the internal hard drive, one to the DVD drive and the last to an eSATA port on top of the tower. (There is also an empty GSATA port). All the ports are 9-pin and the leads coming out are going into 9-pin too (into the dvd etc.)
On the ext. hard drive there are two SATA connections (9-pin + 15-pin).
Do I need to connect both of these using a Y adaptor to go to the 9-pin port in the PC?
What about the power supply, will this come from the SATA port?
Help please.
Update: Ok, there's a 15-pin SATA connector coming from the PSU into the DVD drive and the DVD also has a 9-pin going to the SATA port. Can I then simply replace the DVD drive with the external hard drive? Would there be any power differences that could damage anything?
I think sata is sata is sata, I've done this before and nothing exploded, but that's just my experience, i dont have the details!
Your mainboard probably has more than 3 SATA ports on it, so if you can find some extra cables you can plug it in without sacrificing your ability to play DVD's. You may need one of these for the power if you don't have any extra SATA power leads
People always say after a hd dies that "I'll never buy such and such again" but i think most major HD manufacturers all have problems.
Other than movement, I guess there's no difference in reliability between an external and internal HD? What's the best solution for a stationary 250-500gb hard drive that isn't TOO expensive?
Then just get a cheap USB HD or a larger capacity flash drive from the times when you really do need to move your data from one location to another.
I have a 500GB WD drive that i would take to and from work regularly, have had it for about 3 years and its still works the same, i'm honestly surprised i've never had any issues with it for the amount of abuse it has taken... I generally dont keep anything important stuff on this drive. I guess model to model they probably vary quite a bit in reliability, so reading reviews is essential.
red(generally) cable, black ends = data cable
black ended cable with lots of slots etc = sata power cable(shown is a converter from molex to sata)
4 pin gray(generally) cable = molex power cable
Some sata drives actually have the sata power cables AND molex, or JUST molex. Just make sure that you do not plug in both a sata power and molex cable at the same time and you'll be good.
Hmm gimme a second while a purchase a tank to run over my SSD XD