[zeff]

Hi all,
I am trying to understand the types of hdd's

I have a pal who had his m board die I wold like to recover his info ofr him.

Now from the drives Ive puled from my laptops 5 I have the multi pin type
porcupine type, the tongue type with 2 tabs, l----l l--l a tab one long across, and a short bit
I have one that is just one long tab l-------l both with flat the contacts showing.

say a dell 600, a a hp nx6310 a gateway my3707 is what I have to use for this

The drive to be read is from a toshi L 25

God I hate the fact that nothing is ever standardized.

Are some of these drives toting a removable adapter?
that I could swap

And do not get me started on ram !

Thanks for your help ... I do read up and try before I ask here.

 

[tcolvinMI]

Im not familiar with those models of PC's but there are two basic types of hard drives in consumer PC's: IDE (Also called PATA) and SATA. The porcupine type, as you say, is typical of an IDE interface. There is a 40 pin data connector on these types of drives and then next to it should be a port to plug in from the power supply. SATA, on the other hand, is a much newer interface and has what appears to be two tabs. The smaller tab is for the connection to the motherboard and the larger is for power. Here's a link I found from a Google Search that would give you a more visual idea of what the difference is. You'll notice from this picture that the SATA drive (on the bottom) also has the molex power connector. This is optional on SATA drives, because they come with their own power connector. However, for compatibility with older power supplies, it was added on some models.

Now, if you're looking at laptop drives, you will see much the same thing, except that the IDE interface for a laptop hard drive doesnt have a molex power connector. It pulls its power directly from the cable plugged into it. A SATA laptop hard drive would look very similar to a desktop SATA drive. See here.

I hope this helps you understand the difference a bit better. Good luck.

 

[zeff]

Thank you give battle tonight, it is hard to see inside or to open it all up to be sure, just do not want to just jamb it in and hope.

puters were made to make our lives easier .....?!