Is it possible to connect a hard drive? How to connect an old IDE hard drive to a new computer. What to do if your hard drive doesn't show up
This question might interest you for several reasons. First: Do you want to install a larger hard drive on your laptop, or your old one just burned out. Second: You want to transfer information from your computer’s hard drive to your laptop.
Replacing the device
To replace the hard drive in a laptop, you need to perform a few simple steps.
First of all, you need to buy it. At the same time, remember that it differs from a computer one, since its size is not 3.5”, but 2.5”. The interface for hard drives in recently released laptops is SATA. But it’s better to make sure of this, because the IDE interface may be outdated.
Extraction
Turn off the laptop and turn it upside down towards you. Then remove the battery by sliding the latches away.
Now remove the plastic cover that covers the hard one. We unscrew all the screws that secure it.
We unscrew the screws that hold the hard drive itself.
To remove the hard one, you need to slide it down from the contacts. To do this, grab the grooves near the contacts with your fingers, do not touch them so as not to damage them, and slide them in the direction of the arrow, as shown in the figure.
Remove the device by holding the same grooves.
After removing the hard drive, you will see that it is located in a sled - a metal case. It must be carefully removed from there. To do this, unscrew the screws: two on one side and two on the other.
Installation
We insert the new hard drive into the metal case and screw the screws back.
We put the device in place and move it towards the contacts to connect it.
We fasten the disk to the case with screws.
Reinstall the plastic cover and insert the battery. This completes the replacement of the hard drive on the laptop.
Connecting a hard drive from a computer
If you have a problem with how to transfer information from a computer to a laptop, then you can use several methods to do this.
1. You can connect your computer and laptop via a network cable. You can read more about how to do this in the article: how to connect a laptop to a computer.
3. But if you need to transfer hundreds of gigabytes of information from a computer to a laptop, it is better to use the third method: connect the computer’s hard drive to the laptop. Also note that the laptop must be turned off.
What you need
Internal hard drives are usually connected via an IDE or SATA interface. IDE is an outdated interface, provides a connection speed of 133 Mb/s. SATA is a hard drive connection interface that has been used since 2003. Connection speed: SATA 1.0 – 150 Mb/s, SATA 2.0 – 300 Mb/s, SATA 3.0 – 600 Mb/s. Connectors and cables for interfaces vary in width; for SATA they are much smaller.
It should also be noted that most laptop models do not have external interfaces for connecting hard drives. In this case, you can connect a hard drive to it only through a USB port. To do this, you will need to purchase a special adapter from IDE to USB, or from SATA to USB. The adapters usually come with a power supply. It will also be necessary since the power supplied through the USB interface may not be enough for the hard drive.
How to connect
The hard drive connection methods for different interfaces are shown below. The adapter is connected to the hard drive, the USB plug at the other end is connected to the laptop. The power supply can be connected in different ways: either to an adapter, or directly to the hard drive.
If you purchased an IDE/SATA to USB adapter, then when you connect the hard drive via the SATA interface, the power supply is connected to the hard drive through the adapter.
If you plan to use the hard drive connected to the laptop for a long time, it is better to purchase an external container with an adapter for it. In this way, accidental damage to the device can be avoided. Moreover, now you can use it as a regular external hard drive. The container looks like a hard case, and is equipped with an IDE/SATA – USB adapter; you can also connect external power to it.
To avoid damage to the hard drive, do not turn off the external power when working with it. You can only disconnect the device if you have performed a safe removal of the device on your laptop.
I hope the article will be useful to you, and you will be able to connect the hard drive to your laptop without problems.
Rate this article:Sometimes, in order to repair and restore a hard drive or to transfer information from it to another device, it becomes necessary to connect the hard drive from one computer to another. However, this is not always possible. We propose to consider the most common situations and ways to solve them.
A hard drive from one PC fits perfectly into another PC.
To connect it, we need to remove it and connect it where we need it. The problem is not obvious. But! Many users do not know what their illiterate actions can lead to.
In order to remove the HDD from the PC system unit or from a laptop, you need to DISCONNECT it. No devices other than USB and memory cards (MemoryStick, SD, MicroSD and others) can be disconnected from the computer without turning off the power. You can read more about safety rules in this article. Read how to properly disconnect your PC from the power supply.
After turning off the power to your PC or laptop (you also need to remove the battery from the laptop), you can begin disassembling. Remove the side cover of the system unit (or the bottom cover of the laptop), carefully disconnect the cables, while remembering their location. After this, unscrew the screws securing the hard drive to the case and remove it. You need to connect the hard drive to another PC in the reverse order, after disconnecting it from power.
Remember: manipulations with the internal devices of a computer while simultaneously supplying electric current can lead to the most dire consequences: a power surge and, as a result, failure of the HDD or PC as a whole, or even electric shock to the would-be master. Be careful, do not endanger yourself and your computer!
The hard drive of one PC does not fit into another
There's a catch, isn't there? The fact is that modern operating systems practically block user access to the HDD. Or rather, you can record, erase, and read information in full. But, for example, it is not always possible to format a hard drive. However, often this is simply necessary. For example, when you try to install another operating system on it. This problem is especially acute with laptops, since they cannot be connected to a PC due to different hardware configurations, and two hard drives cannot be connected to another laptop.
- method one:
There is one clever way to solve this problem. If you are the happy owner of an external hard drive in a collapsible case, then you have the opportunity to replace the hard drive in it. To do this, you need the technical characteristics of your HDD to match the disk in the “box”. If the disk size, operating voltage and connection type are the same, then remove the hard disk from the PC as described in the first case. Then open the casing of the external drive, disconnect all the cables from it, and remove it. In its place, insert your hard drive from the PC and close the “box”. It's simple! Now you can connect your hard drive to any computer via a USB port, just like a regular removable drive.
But what to do if the hard drive from your PC or laptop does not fit into another computer or there is no way to “make” a removable drive out of it? It's not all so sad! There is an exit.
- method two:
In one store selling openly Chinese electronics and computer equipment, I managed to buy a HDD/USB adapter that allows you to connect a hard drive via USB. To be honest, I myself didn’t know that such things existed. This device consists of three parts:
- the device itself, which is a housing the size of a cigarette pack
- USB cable tightly connected to the adapter body. The cable has two USB plugs, I’ll explain why later
- power supply for output voltage 5/12 V.
I should immediately note that this adapter is universal and makes it possible to connect via USB hard drives of any existing standard SATA 2.5/3.5/5.25, IDE 2.5/3.5/5.25.
USEFUL:
Now let's talk about the connection method:
- for SATA drives Everything is simple: insert the appropriate connector of the adapter into the hard drive socket, connect the adapter to the computer using a black USB cable and turn on the adapter with the switch at the end of the case. From now on, you can work with your SATA HDD as with a regular external drive or as a flash drive;
- for IDE 2.5 drives everything is the same, you just need to additionally connect the red USB cable to the computer. It will provide power to your HDD;
- for disks from PCs of the old IDE 3.5 format and the very ancient IDE 5.25 instead of the red USB cable, you need to connect the power supply to the adapter and plug it into the network. I remind you that all manipulations for connecting drives must be carried out BEFORE applying current, that is, first connect everything, then plug it into the outlet, and then turn on the power button on the adapter body. Switch off in reverse order.
ON A NOTE:
A very useful thing, it has helped me out more than once at home and when working with clients, when I was doing private repairs and setting up computers. This device cost me 700 rubles in 2014 at the dollar exchange rate of 35 rubles per dollar, that is, $20. This is in a retail store in a small county town. I think that such a thing can be found in online stores for much less, and from the Chinese themselves at online auctions - for pennies. Please write about prices, other similar devices and your experience of using these devices in the comments.
Hello! In we looked at the hard drive device in detail, but I didn’t specifically say anything about interfaces - that is, ways of interaction between the hard drive and other computer devices, or more specifically, ways of interacting (connecting) the hard drive and the computer.
Why didn't you say so? But because this topic is worthy of no less than an entire article. Therefore, today we will analyze in detail the most popular hard drive interfaces at the moment. I’ll immediately make a reservation that the article or post (whichever is more convenient for you) this time will have an impressive size, but unfortunately there’s no way to go without it, because if you write briefly, it will turn out to be completely unclear.
Computer hard drive interface concept
First, let's define the concept of "interface". In simple terms (and this is what I will express myself in as much as possible, since the blog is intended for ordinary people, like you and me), interface - the way devices interact with each other and not only devices. For example, many of you have probably heard about the so-called “friendly” interface of a program. What does it mean? This means that the interaction between a person and a program is easier, not requiring much effort on the part of the user, compared to a “non-friendly” interface. In our case, the interface is simply a way of interaction between the hard drive and the computer motherboard. It is a set of special lines and a special protocol (a set of data transfer rules). That is, purely physically, it is a cable (cable, wire), on both sides of which there are inputs, and on the hard drive and motherboard there are special ports (places where the cable is connected). Thus, the concept of interface includes the connecting cable and ports located on the devices it connects.
Well, now for the “juice” of today’s article, let’s go!
Types of interaction between hard drives and computer motherboard (types of interfaces)
So, first in line we will have the most “ancient” (80s) of all, it can no longer be found in modern HDDs, this is the IDE interface (aka ATA, PATA).
IDE- translated from English “Integrated Drive Electronics”, which literally means “built-in controller”. It was only later that IDE began to be called an interface for data transfer, since the controller (located in the device, usually in hard drives and optical drives) and the motherboard had to be connected with something. It (IDE) is also called ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), it turns out something like “Advanced Connection Technology”. The fact is that ATA - parallel data interface, for which soon (literally immediately after the release of SATA, which will be discussed below) it was renamed PATA (Parallel ATA).
What can I say, although the IDE was very slow (the data transfer bandwidth ranged from 100 to 133 megabytes per second in different versions of the IDE - and even then purely theoretically, in practice it was much less), but it allowed you to simultaneously connect two devices to the motherboard at once , using one loop.
Moreover, in the case of connecting two devices at once, the line capacity was divided in half. However, this is far from the only drawback of the IDE. The wire itself, as can be seen from the figure, is quite wide and, when connected, will take up the lion's share of the free space in the system unit, which will negatively affect the cooling of the entire system as a whole. All in all IDE is already outdated morally and physically, for this reason the IDE connector can no longer be found on many modern motherboards, although until recently they were still installed (in the amount of 1 piece) on budget motherboards and on some boards in the mid-price segment.
The next interface, no less popular than the IDE in its time, is SATA (Serial ATA), a characteristic feature of which is serial data transmission. It is worth noting that at the time of writing this article, it is the most widespread for use in PCs.
There are 3 main variants (revisions) of SATA, differing from each other in throughput: rev. 1 (SATA I) - 150 Mb/s, rev. 2 (SATA II) - 300 Mb/s, rev. 3 (SATA III) - 600 Mb/s. But this is only in theory. In practice, the writing/reading speed of hard drives usually does not exceed 100-150 MB/s, and the remaining speed is not yet in demand and only affects the speed of interaction between the controller and the HDD cache memory (increases the disk access speed).
Among the innovations we can note - backward compatibility of all versions of SATA (a disk with a SATA rev. 2 connector can be connected to a motherboard with a SATA rev. 3 connector, etc.), improved appearance and ease of connecting/disconnecting the cable, increased compared to with IDE cable length (1 meter maximum, versus 46 cm on the IDE interface), support NCQ functions starting from the first revision. I hasten to please owners of old devices that do not support SATA - they exist adapters from PATA to SATA, this is a real way out of the situation, allowing you to avoid wasting money on buying a new motherboard or a new hard drive.
Also, unlike PATA, the SATA interface provides for “hot-swappable” hard drives, which means that when the computer’s system unit is powered on, hard drives can be connected/detached. True, to implement it you will need to delve a little into the BIOS settings and enable AHCI mode.
Next in line - eSATA (External SATA)- was created in 2004, the word "external" indicates that it is used to connect external hard drives. Supports " hot swap"disks. The length of the interface cable has been increased compared to SATA - the maximum length is now two meters. eSATA is not physically compatible with SATA, but has the same bandwidth.
But eSATA is far from the only way to connect external devices to a computer. For example FireWire- high-speed serial interface for connecting external devices, including HDD.
Supports hot swapping of hard drives. In terms of bandwidth it is comparable to USB 2.0, and with the advent of USB 3.0 it even loses in speed. However, it does have the advantage that FireWire is able to provide isochronous data transmission, which facilitates its use in digital video, since it allows data to be transmitted in real time. Sure, FireWire is popular, but not as popular as, for example, USB or eSATA. It is used quite rarely to connect hard drives; in most cases, FireWire is used to connect various multimedia devices.
USB (Universal Serial Bus), perhaps the most common interface used to connect external hard drives, flash drives and solid-state drives (SSD). As in the previous case, there is support for “hot swapping”, a rather large maximum length of the connecting cable is up to 5 meters when using USB 2.0, and up to 3 meters when using USB 3.0. It is probably possible to make the cable longer, but in this case the stable operation of the devices will be in question.
USB 2.0 data transfer speed is about 40 MB/s, which is generally low. Yes, of course, for ordinary everyday work with files, a channel bandwidth of 40 Mb/s is enough, but as soon as we start talking about working with large files, you will inevitably begin to look towards something faster. But it turns out there is a way out, and its name is USB 3.0, the bandwidth of which, compared to its predecessor, has increased 10 times and is about 380 Mb/s, that is, almost the same as SATA II, even a little more.
There are two types of USB cable pins, type "A" and type "B", located on opposite ends of the cable. Type "A" - controller (motherboard), type "B" - connected device.
USB 3.0 (Type "A") is compatible with USB 2.0 (Type "A"). Types "B" are not compatible with each other, as can be seen from the figure.
Thunderbolt(Light Peak). In 2010, Intel demonstrated the first computer with this interface, and a little later, the no less famous company Apple joined Intel in supporting Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is quite cool (how could it be otherwise, Apple knows what is worth investing in), is it worth talking about its support for such features as: the notorious “hot swap”, simultaneous connection with several devices at once, truly “huge” data transfer speed (20 times faster than USB 2.0).
The maximum cable length is only 3 meters (apparently more is not necessary). However, despite all the listed advantages, Thunderbolt is not yet “massive” and is used mainly in expensive devices.
Go ahead. Next up we have a couple of very similar interfaces - SAS and SCSI. Their similarity lies in the fact that they are both used primarily in servers where high performance and the shortest possible hard disk access time are required. However, there is also a flip side to the coin - all the advantages of these interfaces are offset by the price of devices that support them. Hard drives that support SCSI or SAS are much more expensive.
SCSI(Small Computer System Interface) - a parallel interface for connecting various external devices (not just hard drives).
It was developed and standardized even somewhat earlier than the first version of SATA. The latest versions of SCSI have hot-swap support.
SAS(Serial Attached SCSI), which replaced SCSI, was supposed to solve a number of shortcomings of the latter. And I must say - he succeeded. The fact is that, due to its “parallelism,” SCSI used a common bus, so only one of the devices could work with the controller at a time; SAS does not have this drawback.
Plus, it's backwards compatible with SATA, which is definitely a big plus. Unfortunately, the cost of hard drives with a SAS interface is close to the cost of SCSI hard drives, but there is no way to get rid of this; you have to pay for speed.
If you are not tired yet, I suggest you consider another interesting way to connect an HDD - NAS(Network Attached Storage). Currently, network attached storage systems (NAS) are very popular. Essentially, this is a separate computer, a kind of mini-server, responsible for storing data. It connects to another computer via a network cable and is controlled from another computer through a regular browser. All this is needed in cases where large disk space is required, which is used by several people at once (in the family, at work). Data from the network storage is transferred to user computers either via a regular cable (Ethernet) or using Wi-Fi. In my opinion, a very convenient thing.
I think that's all for today. I hope you liked the material, I suggest you subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss anything (form in the upper right corner) and we will meet you in the next blog articles.
The process of connecting a hard drive seems complicated for those who have never done it. In fact, connecting a hard drive to a computer is not at all difficult if it has a SATA and IDE interface. Let's consider both connection options.
To connect an IDE hard drive to the motherboard, you need a special wide cable. However, please note that gray IDE cables are less efficient than yellow cables. With the latter, your hard drive will work much faster.
In this case, for connections on the motherboard it is better to choose the first connectors - SATA 0, SATA 1, SATA 2.
Hello, friends. Sooner or later, disk space runs out. We constantly fill our devices with data and one day we find out that there is no more space on our disk. And I want it to always be there. Today I’ll tell you how you can quickly solve this problem yourself. In today's article we will connect the hard drive to the computer ourselves.
So, friends, you have discovered that you have a problem, but don’t worry, connecting the HDD is actually simple. A typical computer is equipped with one to six hard drives. You can turn them into a place to store files, or install another operating system. For example, on one disk you have Windows 10, and on the other Windows 7. When necessary, you boot from “seven”, and when not, from “ten” - you can do that. And you can make RAID arrays if necessary.
We connect a 3.5 hard drive from a laptop to a computer via a USB adapter
The easiest and most hassle-free option is to buy an external portable hard drive. This drive is connected via a USB connector and used as a large flash drive. The advantage of this solution is that you can store a lot of things on it? It connects easily to your computer, is compact and easy to carry. There are also disadvantages:
- the presence of a cord that must be connected all the time;
- read-write speed is lower than that of a disk connected in the usual way;
- special sensitivity to shocks and falls.
What does this have to do with a laptop disk? Inside this case is the most ordinary laptop hard drive. And if you have such a used laptop disk, you can make it portable yourself. The most important part is the adapter. You can buy an adapter in a store, taking the disk with you, and the seller will select an adapter for you, and perhaps even a beautiful case. Putting everything together we get a portable disk:
It can now be connected to a USB port. Or this option, without an adapter, just a connector screwed to the case, into which the hard drive is then inserted. The case itself can be secured in the system unit basket with screws:
This option is suitable for connecting an HDD without an adapter, inside the system unit. Read on.
Connecting a HDD without an adapter at home
You can easily connect the same 3.5 hard drive yourself. You will need an additional SATA cable for the hard drive and possibly an additional power plug (if there are not enough connectors on the power supply). On sale there are the following cable options where everything is in one:
We open the system unit after disconnecting all the wires from it, unscrew the screws:
...remove the cover,
Connect the data cable to the motherboard...
...and the hard drive along with the power connector:
It is highly desirable that the 3.5 disk does not hang on the wires. If possible, it is better to secure it in a stationary state to avoid vibrations and shocks.
Then, we find a suitable place for it and secure it, if possible, with standard mounting screws in the basket, or at worst with plumbing tape, so that our disk is firmly and motionlessly fixed. We put the cover of the system unit in place.
How to connect a second, additional hard drive to a computer via a SATA connector
If you have a standard hard drive from your computer, you can just as easily connect it as a second drive. We do everything according to the same scheme. First, we secure the new disk with standard screws on both sides in the disk basket so that there is no vibration:
Then we connect the cable and the power connector. The disk is connected.
Connecting an IDE hard drive to the motherboard and SATA connector
If your computer's motherboard has connectors for connecting an IDE hard drive, you can try connecting such a drive. For a long time, all computers worked on the IDE interface, something like this until 2005. A disk with such an interface looks like this:
The connection socket looks like this:
Sometimes the connectors are multi-colored. And the cable for connecting to the motherboard looks like this:
The blue block connects to the motherboard, the black (topmost) to the hard drive, and the white to the DVD drive.
There is an important point when using IDE drives. If you are going to use such a disk, you need to correctly switch the jumper to the position Master or Slave. This option tells the system what role this disk will play. Master— this disk is considered the main one, and loading will take place from it. Slave— secondary disk.
Different manufacturers have their own jumper pinouts. The decoding of the switching modes is always indicated on the disk case:
By setting the jumpers to a certain position, we indicate the priorities - which disk is the main one. Previously, when there were several such disks, it took a lot of time to switch them. The SATA interface does not have these disadvantages. The IDE interface has long been outdated and is no longer used on modern devices. However, you can connect your existing IDE drive to the SATA socket on the motherboard using a special adapter. You need to connect the adapter to the IDE drive:
...and a SATA cable and power cable to the motherboard and power supply. In this way, you can increase disk space by some, albeit small (by modern standards) amount. Everything is more than a flash drive!
If you bought a new hard drive, you must initialize it before using it, otherwise Windows will not see it, even if it is connected correctly. This is done using special programs such as Acronis Disk Director 12. First, install the disk in the system unit, connect, and load Acronis Disk Director:
At first you will not see the new connected disk under Windows. However, if the Disk Management snap-in is available in your version of Windows, you can try to initialize the connected disk through this snap-in. In the photo, we first went to “Computer Management”, then to “Disk Management”.
However, I always use Acronis; it is guaranteed to see all disks connected to the computer.
You need to select the desired disk, right-click to open the menu, select “Initialize disk”, and then at the very top click “Apply pending operations”:
After initialization, we create a partition or partitions on the disk, formatting them in the NTFS file system. At this point, the operation of connecting the disk to the computer can be considered completely completed. We connected it physically and programmatically. After these steps, the disks can be used for their intended purpose - installing an operating system or making volumes out of them to store your data.
If you decide to install another operating system on a new drive, then after installation, when you boot your computer, you will need to select the drive on which you installed it. This is done through the BIOS. To enter the BIOS, first press the key DEL, and then select the desired disk:
I repeat, you need to select from the list that appears the disk that you need. You can then change the download at any time. In general, you can connect a hard drive yourself very easily, try everything and you will definitely succeed.
