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Mole

Post subject: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 09:35

Member

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 18:54
Posts: 4036
Location: Cumbria

I've finally bitten the bullet and decided to build another PC. I got one of those "barebones" ones, plus a processor and some RAM, but was hoping to use my existing HDD and DVD writer. Unfortunately, I found that it came with one IDE cable from the mother board to the DVD writer, but a strange red cable for the hard drive (which won't fit on mine)! I think it's a "SATA"? cable? The question is: Can I just use my old IDE cable with a second plug in the middle of it to connect both my old hard drive and the DVD writer to the same IDE header on the motherboard, or do I have to buy a new hard drive that will accept this red lead? Is the computer likely to be any slower with the IDE cable arrangement? Can I (one day) run a second hard drive, so that I have one IDE hard drive and one SATA hard drive?

(I bloody HATE computers)!

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Pete317

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 11:23

Life Member

Joined: Sat Mar 27, 2004 13:50
Posts: 2643

You should be able to connect both your hard drive and DVD to the one IDE cable, and have the computer boot off the hard drive. After all, it should be able to boot off DVD.
SATA drives are no slower, as the restriction is the physical speed of transfer from the disk surface - not the speed of transfer to the motherboard.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

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dcbwhaley

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 11:23

Supporter

Joined: Thu Oct 16, 2008 13:45
Posts: 4042
Location: Near Buxton, Derbyshire

Mole wrote:

Yes that will be for a SATA drive.

Quote:

The question is: Can I just use my old IDE cable with a second plug in the middle of it to connect both my old hard drive and the DVD writer to the same IDE header on the motherboard

Yes you can do that. But make sure that one is configured as Master and the other as Slave (usually done with little jumpers at the back of the drive). The BIOS screen at startup will tell you whether both are connected both are connected

Quote:

Is the computer likely to be any slower with the IDE cable arrangement?

Probably. mainly because a replacement SATA drive is likely to be higher spec than your existing drive.

Quote:

Can I (one day) run a second hard drive, so that I have one IDE hard drive and one SATA hard drive?

Yes. The computer at which I am typing is set up like that. SATA for the main drive and the pre-upgrade IDE drive with all my old data still on it. To be pedantic they are all IDE drives: old ones parallel (PATA) and new ones serial (SATA).

Quote:

(I bloody HATE computers)!

Don't we all. That SATA plug is one of the most wretched little connectors I have seen in 40 years in the industry, Treat it with care. It is very fragile.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

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Outcast

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 13:10

User

Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 17:25
Posts: 183
Location: Diesel City

You probably don't even need to set Master & Slave these days. Device ID is used ie: DVDRW and (something like) Maxxtor 1938456oeu (Will come back after i post this url to the gubbins of my PC and edit that device No.)

Multiple Hard drives (System 1TB Partitioned into 20gb Win7, 50ish Data,(NTFS) 100gb /Root,(Ext4) 10gb swap, 800gb /Home,(Ext4) Capture 200gb (NTFS) - Render 200gb (NTFS))

[edit]

That Maxtor was Maxtor 6B200M0 (drive under it is identical)
System is Samsung HD1035J

They are all Sata obviously but if you look carefully behind that 3 plates of spaghetti you'll see a flat IDE ribbon. That's connected to a 250gb IDE but unpowered. I keep it there to test latest Linux Distros

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The Box said "Windows XP or better" ... So I installed Ubuntu

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theboxers

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 14:30

User

Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 02:25
Posts: 331

There are ide to sata converters for about £10. I have used them with no problems.

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Mole

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 20:45

Member

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 18:54
Posts: 4036
Location: Cumbria

Brilliant!

Thanks everyone - it's now up and running and installing it's software!

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botach

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 20:55

Gold Member

Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2004 23:26
Posts: 9268
Location: Treacletown ( just north of M6 J3),A MILE OR TWO PAST BEDROCK

theboxers wrote:

There are ide to sata converters for about £10. I have used them with no problems.

And on computer fairs - possibly a lot less. But the entry price would mean tht you need to get a lot of stuff to make it worthwhile - on the other hand, I've had decent quality Canon (compatible) ink for £1 a colour ,and a lot of places in there are pro firms ,who can cut the prices as in there their overheads are low .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

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Mole

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 15:48

Member

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 18:54
Posts: 4036
Location: Cumbria

Just another quicke: I'm up and running on the new one now, and it's all lovely and fast, but every time the screen saver cuts in, I need to click on my identity before I can resume my work! I've got three identities set up (WIndows XP Pro). One for me, one for Mrs M and one for the kids. As soon as the screen saver cuts in (or the monitor goes to sleep), I come back, move the mouse, but instead of going back to my work, it goes back to the screen with the three identities on. I then have to click on me and it will then display my stuff again. It's not the end of the world, but I'm pretty certain the last computer didn't do it, so I was wondering if there was a setting that you could change to alter that?

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malcolmw

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 15:59

Gold Member

Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2004 14:26
Posts: 4364
Location: Hampshire/Wiltshire Border

In Xp, right click on desktop and select Properties. On the Screensaver tab uncheck "ON Resume, password protect".

When you touch the mouse it should then go straight back to the desktop.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

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Mole

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 01:44

Member

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 18:54
Posts: 4036
Location: Cumbria

Ta Malcolm, That sorted it! :drink:

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Mole

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 12:37

Member

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 18:54
Posts: 4036
Location: Cumbria

OK everyone, now I've got a REAL problem!

I've been away for a few days, fired up the computer, and found that one of the hard drives is "unformatted"! This is especially bad news. It was the old hard drive out of my last computer and it had EVERYTHING on it! 10 years' worth of photos for a start! Worse than that, I had thought that I'd copied all the stuff from it on to another hard drive before I built this new computer...

...just in case...

As this computer was working fine, I then formatted that other hard drive and gave it to my parents for their computer, with the intention of copying the stuff on my old hard drive to my new hard drive.

Now I try to click on my old hard drive and it just comes up (after a while displaying its "egg timer"), with the message "Drive E is not formatted, would you like to format it now"?

What are my options? I've tried putting that hard drive back in the other computer and it comes up with the same message. The jumpers on it are set to "slave". Is there anything else I can try, or do I need to go to one of these data recovery firms??

HELP!!!!

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botach

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 22:23

Gold Member

Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2004 23:26
Posts: 9268
Location: Treacletown ( just north of M6 J3),A MILE OR TWO PAST BEDROCK

Quick - try and stop parents from putting anything on the formatted drive, you gave them. If all else fails -there's programs around to unformat a drive .If you find any recovery programs on the net -DON'T try and put them on the dodgy drive, I've had limited success with some of them ,but most in trial mode show there's stacks of data which can be recovered if you cough up .In principle I only use ones that are freeware . I'd wait for some of the computer experts to help ,before heading off for a recovery specialist ,which can cost .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

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Steve

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 23:05

Friend of Safe Speed

Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:16
Posts: 7986
Location: Moved to London

botach wrote:

Quick - try and stop parents from putting anything on the formatted drive, you gave them. If all else fails -there's programs around to unformat a drive .

Really? I thought the act of formatting a drive overwrites any and all data? ... unless - did you do a 'quick format' Mole? (on the working drive)
I know there are techniques for recovering overwritten data, but I thought these required $peciali$t hardware.

Anyway, it would be prudent to follows botach's advice (don't use the drives at all), at least until you have consulted a specialist Mole.

I doubt anything you can find for free on the net will be any good to recover the "unformatted" drive.
Perhaps a chat with these guys would help:
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/da ... -software/

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

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Mole

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 23:41

Member

Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 18:54
Posts: 4036
Location: Cumbria

Thanks both,

Unfortunately, when I fitted it to the parents' computer, I then showed my mum how to copy files from her (almost completely full!) existing drive on to it...

...and no, it wasn't a "quick format"!

I'll be kicking myself for some considerable time...probably to the point of "self-homicide"! Looking round on the 'net, the going rate for a "proper" data recovery company on a 40 Gig hard drive seems to be about £250, so this is turning into a very expensive "home-built" PC now! :cry:

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Steve

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 23:52

Friend of Safe Speed

Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:16
Posts: 7986
Location: Moved to London

Well that ended any notion of saving data from the good drive

As for the 'bad' one: I'm sure that would be trivial for anyone with the know-how.

I'm sure there are things around that can recover lost partitions. I think testdisk offered that function (completely free). I also recall something called MBRWIZ, I've never used it.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

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botach

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 00:11

Gold Member

Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2004 23:26
Posts: 9268
Location: Treacletown ( just north of M6 J3),A MILE OR TWO PAST BEDROCK

Steve wrote:

Well that ended any notion of saving data from the good drive

Reason I posted about "unformat" was that I've still got a copy of Norton 4.5 ( circa 90's vintage, which works great on a PC with DOS IN THE 5/6 area, before Win95, and sometimes on 95) , that features an Unformat command and it says that data on a formatted drive is recoverable ( often thought about formatting an old HDD in DOS 5 /EARLY 6 ,and seeing it's full potential .Had decent success on floppies on an old PC recovering /repairing discs)
But given the cost , Mole might like to look at download.com / tucows.com ( with a www in front) for recovery software . As said - i've had limited success with a few ,on dodgy discs. Else he might like to try downloading POWERMAX/SEATOOLS from Seagate site , and trying to repair disc .( But ,Id wait for one of our resident PC blokies to advise on that score ) - some like Gixer ,if he's still around .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

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Outcast

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 12:37

User

Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 17:25
Posts: 183
Location: Diesel City

Linux to the rescue...again

Trinity rescue Kit

Quote:

Here 's a sumup of some of the most important features, new and old:

-easily reset windows passwords with the improved winpass tool
-simple and easy menu interface
-5 different virusscan products integrated in a single uniform commandline with online update capability
-full ntfs write support thanks to ntfs-3g
-winclean, a utility that cleans up all sorts of unnecessary temporary files on your computer.
-clone computers over the network via multicast.
-wide range of hardware support (kernel 2.6.35 )
-contributed backup utility called "pi", to automate local machine backups
-easy script to find and mount all local filesystems
-self update capability to include and update all virusscanners + local changes you made to TRK.
-full proxyserver support.
-run a samba fileserver (windows like filesharing)
-run a ssh server
-recovery and undeletion of files with utilities and procedures
-recovery of lost partitions
-evacuation of dying disks
-full read/write and rpm support
-UTF-8 international character support (select keyboard language from the scrollable textmenu at startup)
-2 rootkit detection uitilities
-most software updated to recent versions
-literally thousands of changes and bugfixes since version 3.3
-elaborated documentation, including manpages for all commands (also TRK 's own)

_________________
The Box said "Windows XP or better" ... So I installed Ubuntu

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Dusty

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:05

User

Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 21:10
Posts: 1693

I had a similar problem (Is it a win 7 thing I wonder, failing to recognise/screwing up drives formatted with XP although they should all be NTFS)

I found this and established that it can "see" my old data using the demo but have not splashed out on the full version yet.

http://www.datarecoverysoftware.com/

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

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Steve

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:37

Friend of Safe Speed

Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:16
Posts: 7986
Location: Moved to London

That's a good point Dusty.

Mole,
how was the 'bad' drive formatted (NTFS, FAT32, or else), and what are the operating systems on the PCs you tried the 'bad' drive on?

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

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botach

Post subject: Re: More computer questions (hardware)

Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 23:51

Gold Member

Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2004 23:26
Posts: 9268
Location: Treacletown ( just north of M6 J3),A MILE OR TWO PAST BEDROCK

Dusty wrote:

Never had any problems with any version of Win 7( and I've run it since the first Beta version) causing problems on any disc, or OS .I've currently got two HDD and can see all partitions from Win 7 ,from Win 7 down to 98 .Again ,I've got a couple of elderly dos formatted and running 98 held in reserve. If I let them run for any length of time ,they show problems. But formatted and used as stores on a nice comfortable shelf they hold their data,in case I have a major problem and lose some drivers etc. Any time I've stuck them in and looked at then using Win 7 ,I've never had a problem .I've had that problem with one or two of my DOS floppies -startup discs etc ,where Win 7 has told me that they're not formatted .That's one reason I've got 98 -my old Norton will sort out most problems on 98,( on Dos discs) any series ones would need a lower DOS .

In the data recovery stuff - I've had similar claims by recovery software ,where it's seen a lot of stuff. I prefer the ones that let you trial recover stuff -say up to five files ,then have to buy the licence .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

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