Connecting a WD800JD Hard Drive to a Compaq Presario PC

[Old Sparky]

The WD800JD is an 80GB SATA Drive fitted with a Foxconn keyed connector. Is there any way to connect this to a Presario S7390UK tower which has an ATX PSU with spare connectors for an extra drive, none of which appear to match the Foxconn one?
There are USB & Firewire ports on the tower, if suitable adaptors are available. A supplementary question - is a speciald DVD drive needed to read/write double sided DVD/DVD+ or -R Discs?. These are not recognised by the DVD writer in this PC

[Mark Hennessy]

Looking at this guide: http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hp...cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.prp_ba847bafb2a2d782fcbb0710b053ce01=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c00639835-38%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.tpst=ba847bafb2a2d782fcbb0710b053ce01&sp4ts.oid=404609&ac.admitted=1407145479501.876444892.199480143

...it appears that the motherboard has SATA connections. So the problem is just the power connector?

If so, then yes, you can buy power adaptors. First result from Google: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wired-Up-SATA-Po...B000ITL1PG

If the motherboard lacks SATA connections, there are IDE to SATA adaptors available: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/dynamode-...ta-adapter

But then, by the time you've faffed about with adaptors, it's often simpler and cheaper to just buy a new hard drive. These guys do cheap "pulls": http://www.cclonline.com/category/701/St...rd-Drives/

BTW, Foxconn is just the manufacturer of the connector on that particular example you have there. So searches including "foxconn" might not yield the best results.

[Old Sparky]

I was asked if I could retrieve the Data from a WD800JD, Mark, so, as there are adapters available, I should be able to do this. The Comaq PC has IDE connectors for it's built-in HDD

[Mark Hennessy]

Ah - you didn't say it was a data transfer job. Yes, it's definitely worth having the adaptors around for this sort of occasion...

Another option for this sort of thing is a USB cradle. For example: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/2535-inch-sata-usb-dock-a83hq

Slightly higher cost, but no need to take your computer apart.

[Nick]

It goes without saying (but I will anyway!) that if you're bringing in a drive from another host, their anti-virus etc. may well not be as good as yours.

Just be sure your protection is up to date before bringing that disk online

[Refugee]

I use an adapter that plugs into a bare drive and a wall wart to spin it. It has a USB cable and SATA on one side and IDE on the other side.
The mains lead that came with the wall wart was lethal with an unfused 13 amp plug on it.

[Refugee]

Last time I had this issue it was a shortage of SATA power points within a desktop PC and I solved the problem with a couple of these.
The motherboard has plenty of SATA ports that work with the supplied data cables.

[Old Sparky]

Last time I had this issue it was a shortage of SATA power points within a desktop PC and I solved the problem with a couple of these.
The motherboard has plenty of SATA ports that work with the supplied data cables.

There is a spare SATA power connector on an adaptor lead aleady fitted to my PCs PSU, but it doesn't appear to fit the port on the WD800JD HDD, though the latter has the 'Serial ATA' logo clearly printed on it's label, which states ' Use either SATA power or Legacy Power connector - DO NOT use both (What is a 'Legacy' power connector?). The small 'Foxconn' lead & plug attached to the drive is presumably the Data transfer cable.

[Mark Hennessy]

See pictures.

Looking at the adaptor, the "legacy" style connector is the white one, and the black one is SATA.

The other picture shows the connector end of the WD800JD. It looks like standard SATA to me. Personally, I find SATA connectors a bit of a fiddle - I tend to be fashionably late with computer technology, so have only recently started using SATA at home. Good light and a magnifier helps...

The "legacy" connector is on the right - looks like there is a cover that you need to prise off first... I suppose there is a chance that they dropped the pins (but kept the same moulding) to save cost.

[Mark Hennessy]

And this image shows the SATA data cable and connectors.

Again, Foxconn is just the manufacturer of the example you have.

Some connectors have the cable emerging at right-angles, as the second picture shows...

Some connectors have a metal latching clip; see the third picture.