[LLPJ]

Hello,

I just bought a new external hard drive, a 1tb Phantom Drive. I received the drive in the mail and immediately installed it via the usb cable. In the mean time, I ordered an "esata to sata" cable, thinking I would be able to just run the cable from the external to an open sata port on the motherboard (I have 4 sata ports on my Dell Dimension 8400, two are open and unused).

So...I turned off the computer, unplugged it, opened it up and connected it as above; however, the drive does not show up when I booted up. I emailed the company and they did not recommend that type of set up.

So, my questions/problem is: Do I need to now get a PCI esata card? Or, is there a way to safely hook up the external using this "esata to sata" cable?

Tks!
PJB

 

[manic]

Re: New Hard drive, can I use an esata to sata cable?

When you connect the drive does it show in disk management..
I thought those cables were the same, but I guess not, due to the
length of a esata may be longer and need some extra umph...

 

[raptor_pa]

Re: New Hard drive, can I use an esata to sata cable?

Check BIOS and make sure the SATA port you connected to is turned on and not set up for RAID.

 

[LLPJ]

Re: New Hard drive, can I use an esata to sata cable?

Thanks guys!

I will check the bios tonight.

When I connect the drive via the usb cable, it does show up in disk management, but it doesn't show up when I connected via the "esat to sata" cable. I rebooted and unplugged everything to make it recognize the external drive, but nothing worked.

Raptor is probably right, and it might be the bios set up. My main concern is that when I emailed Phantom Tech Support the response was that it is possible I could damage my mother board by plugging in this "hot swappable" drive into a sata port that was not meant to be hot swappable. However, I never plan on ever unplugging this new external drive, and figure my PC will just recognize it as another internal hard drive. And I wanted to make sure Phantom just didn't want me to buy more of their products since they said I need an esata PCI card and shouldn't use the "esata to sata" cable.

Thanks!

 

[raptor_pa]

Re: New Hard drive, can I use an esata to sata cable?

Serious question, if you are never going to unplug it, then why did you get an external drive instead of just adding an internal drive to one of the sata ports? Generally it is cheaper, and external drives seem to have a higher rate of heat related failures. Just curious why you selected the external...

 

[LLPJ]

Re: New Hard drive, can I use an esata to sata cable?

Hey Raptor, good question. Well, I have a lot of family pictures and home movies and I want to store everything on this single drive, and by having an external gives me the opportunity to grab the drive if I have to run out of the house for an emergency, like a fire, etc. That way I don't lose all the pictures of my kids, etc. My wife would destroy me!

Plus, I have two internal drives installed already and didn't want to heat up my tower any more with a third internal drive. Also, I chose the Fantom GreenDrive external, which all the reviews say is very quiet and does not heat up.

So, checked the Bios, and 2 out of the 4 sata ports on the motherboard were turned off. I turned on a third port and booted up and it recognized the drive right away as it did with the usb. Loving the 3gig transfer speed!!

Can't thank you enough!!
PJ

 

[raptor_pa]

Re: New Hard drive, can I use an esata to sata cable?

Glad it worked out, the green drives are a bit cooler, but make sure you have a good backup of your data besides that drive. Particularly if it is going to be running connected for long periods.