Sata drive problem

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mrdakin

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Dec 13, 2013
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Hello everyone
As is to be expected, I have a dilemma and am looking for help with a solution.
My problem is that I have a working IDE computer, (I know, it's ancient technology), but it only has a 40 gb hard drive. I also have an old broken Sata drive system with a good hard drive (160 gb) that I'd like to put into my working IDE system, initially as a slave so I can copy important files from my current 40 gb drive and important files from the 160 gb drive to an external usb 1tb drive for safe keeping. Then, if possible, I'd like to clone my working 40 gb drive with current OS to the 160 gb drive and set it up as the master drive, with the current 40 gb drive as a slave for extra storage. I know it sounds complicated, at least to me, but I figure there's someone out there to whom this would be child's play and I'm hoping they will be able to help me figure this out. I've purchased a SATA/IDE bridge and put it on the SATA drive and tried to simply connect it to the secondary drive connector on my IDE cable but this way, my system no longer sees either drive. Do I have to change the jumper configuration on my master drive or on my Sata drive? Any help will be appreciated!!

I guess I should say, my sata drive is a WD Caviar SE model WD1600JD-22HBBO (or 0, not sure which) and the 40 gb drive is also a WD Caviar EIDE, model WD400LB-00DNA0
 
Solution
Phillip Corcoran
SATA drives do not have Master/Slave jumpers since they are never (under normal circumstances) sharing a data cable with another drive. Doesn't your computer have a spare IDE port on the motherboard that you can connect the modified SATA drive to?

If there is no spare IDE port on the mobo, and if it is a jumper configuration issue, it can only be the IDE drive that needs the jumper moving. Some IDE drives have a "single drive" jumper position for when the drive isn't sharing. If yours is set to that it needs to be moved to the "Master" position.

If still no joy, consider buying an external SATA enclosure that plugs into a USB port, assuming you have a Windows version that fully supports USB devices (Windows XP or later).
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Phillip Corcoran

Phillip Corcoran

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Sep 7, 2013
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SATA drives do not have Master/Slave jumpers since they are never (under normal circumstances) sharing a data cable with another drive. Doesn't your computer have a spare IDE port on the motherboard that you can connect the modified SATA drive to?

If there is no spare IDE port on the mobo, and if it is a jumper configuration issue, it can only be the IDE drive that needs the jumper moving. Some IDE drives have a "single drive" jumper position for when the drive isn't sharing. If yours is set to that it needs to be moved to the "Master" position.

If still no joy, consider buying an external SATA enclosure that plugs into a USB port, assuming you have a Windows version that fully supports USB devices (Windows XP or later).
 
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Solution
M

mrdakin

Honorable
Dec 13, 2013
2
0
10,510
Thanks for your reply Phillip. I saw on the SATA drive jumper description about there not being any Master/Slave. I DO have two IDE ports on my motherboard, one is cabled to two HDDs and the other is cabled to a DVD rom drive and a CD/DVD burner. It seems that you're implying that since SATA drives normally do not share a data cable with another drive, that I should cable it to my secondary IDE port by itself. Is this correct? If so, I guess I could temporarily disconnect my two DVD drives and connect the SATA drive on that cable by itself as you seem to be suggesting. If that works, it would allow me to copy all it's important files to my external 1tb drive which would then allow me to format the SATA drive and prepare it. But I would really like to be able to set it up as my primary drive with my OS installed on it and have it be my C: drive. I guess I could eliminate my current secondary drive on my primary IDE cable and have the SATA drive on the primary cable by itself. Could you tell me, if I install my operating system on the SATA drive, put it on the primary IDE cable as the primary drive, would I be able to put another IDE drive on that primary cable as a secondary/slave drive to the Sata drive? Would that work? I'm trying to keep as much of my available storage as I can. I suppose I could also do as you say and get an external SATA enclosure and go through USB, But I'm not sure I could run my OS from the SATA drive that way or not and even if I could, wouldn't it be much much slower?

I'm also looking for advice on how to clone a drive. Not sure if it's possible, but I'd like to be able to clone my current OS drive to the SATA drive and be able to use the SATA drive as my new boot drive. Is this possible? Or would I have to actually install the OS to that drive to get it to work.

 
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