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| Porn Users Forum » Any advice please re adding a hard drive to motherboard. |
| 1-16 of 16 Posts | Page 1 |
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| 04-11-12 11:31am - 4638 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Thomas20 (0)
Active User Posts: 60 Registered: Dec 27, '09 Location: England |
Any advice please re adding a hard drive to motherboard. Can anyone advise please : I have an external drive that I want to add to the inside of my pc. It is a 1.5TB external drive that has failed. I am suspicious it is just the pcb that controls the power to the drive and that the drive is ok. I could simply buy a standalone kit that you can use to convert a naked drive to usb and if my suspicion that the drive is still good is right then I am back to where I started. However, my main aim is not really to salvage the data on the drive (everything is duplicated onto TWO externals  ). Instead, if the drive is still good, I want to reuse it in the neatest way, hence my question below. My PC has 4 sata ports on the motherboard. The two hard drives it was shipped with occupy two of ports such that there are two physical hard drives but they both make up the c drive that is visible in the list of drives. So far so normal. I thought you could add an extra drive, either (1) so that it appears as part of the overall c drive or (2) so that the third drive is a stand alone drive simply plugged into one of the spare ports on the motherboard so it shows up as it's own drive letter in the menu (so that if the whole machine fails I can just lift the drive out and plug it in somewhere else). I have taken the hard drive out the external case and connected it to a spare power cable in the pc. The good news is that the subject drive is spinning which it did not do before so my feeling is that the drive is still good. However, I have connected it via the sata cable to one of the spare ports but when I look in the windows start 'explore' button to see what drives there are it does not appear. I have tried the system properties 'find hardware' etc. and buttons on windows control panel but suspect something more technical is needed and that, whilst I cannot see any obvious way of doing it, it can be done. Can anyone help please ? | |
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| 04-11-12 12:02pm - 4638 days | #2 | |
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Wittyguy (0)
Active User  Posts: 1,138 Registered: Feb 04, '08 Location: Left Coast, USA |
I'm not really a techie but my general advice would be that if you are having problems with the drive now then you're just asking for trouble if you try to convert to a standard issue hard drive. I can't think of anything worse then getting it to work and you start using it in the way you want to just fail again in a few weeks. If someone isn't able to help you here then I'd suggest doing a web search for "tech support forums". There are a number of free support sites that answer questions like yours and I've used them in the past. Good luck. | |
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| 04-11-12 12:09pm - 4638 days | #3 | |
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RagingBuddhist (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 893 Registered: Jan 23, '07 |
Assuming Windows XP (can't help you if it's Vista or W7), the first step would be to go to computer management to see if it shows up there. Go to Start> Run and type in "compmgmt.msc" (without quotes). Hit Enter. In the left panel of the window that opens, click on Disk Management. After a few seconds or so, the right panel will show you all disks connected to your PC. If the drive you're looking for doesn't show up, or shows up as unformatted or missing, there are other troubleshooting steps to take - but let's start there. Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupidity. | |
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| 04-11-12 12:35pm - 4638 days | #4 | |
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Micha (0)
Active User Posts: 321 Registered: Jul 04, '10 Location: san jose ca |
If the problem is in fact the enclosure, a new one may be the simplest solution. Ive seen them for as little as 15 bucks (25 or 30 for an ESATA) it would simplify the testing and could be returned if the drive is bad M unless life also gives you water and sugar, your lemonade is gonna suck. | |
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| 04-11-12 12:43pm - 4638 days | #5 | |
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Thomas20 (0)
Active User Posts: 60 Registered: Dec 27, '09 Location: England |
Hi Wittyguy/Micha - you make fair points but I wanted to try and use those spare sata ports at some stage anyway so now is a good a time as any to sort the technical bit. RagingBhuddist - thanks - the drive doesn't show up there - just the C drive.... Edited on Apr 12, 2012, 10:15am | |
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| 04-11-12 11:43pm - 4637 days | #6 | |
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BadMrFrosty (0)
Active User Posts: 124 Registered: Mar 05, '10 Location: Prague (Czech Republic) |
Do what RagingBuddust said. The drive needs to have a letter assigned to it before it will appear in explorer which you do in the drive management tool. If its not listed there then I would say the drive is borked. The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? Frank Zappa | |
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| 04-12-12 12:08am - 4637 days | #7 | |
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anyonebutme (0)
Active User  Posts: 294 Registered: Aug 23, '09 |
Get into the computer's bios first, and find the drive listed under the sata devices. If it is there, take special note of the exact spelling of what the bios thinks the hard drive model is, and compare it to the label on the drive. | |
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| 04-12-12 07:40am - 4637 days | #8 | |
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Cybertoad (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 2,158 Registered: Jan 01, '08 Location: Wash |
First thing I would do is run a partition program at boot and see if it has data on it. There are a few free ones out there, make a CD and try and boot and see if the drive is workable? That would be my first step is to check it outside of an OS. Since 2007 | |
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| 04-12-12 11:39am - 4637 days | #9 | |
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RagingBuddhist (0)
Disabled User Posts: 893 Registered: Jan 23, '07 |
If the drive shows up in the BIOS, and you go back to computer management, does anything show up marked unformatted or unallocated? Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupidity. Edited on Apr 12, 2012, 11:42am | |
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| 04-14-12 05:33am - 4635 days | #10 | |
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Thomas20 (0)
Active User Posts: 60 Registered: Dec 27, '09 Location: England |
I have gone into the bios thingy and told it that there is not a drive on that sata port but when I come out of bios and the computer starts to wind itself up ready to go it tells me that it cannot detect the drive on the port  . The disc has definately got power on it. | |
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| 04-14-12 12:47pm - 4635 days | #11 | |
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RagingBuddhist (0)
Disabled User Posts: 893 Registered: Jan 23, '07 |
The thought just occurred to me to ask if there are any other SATA connectors on your board. On some boards there are RAID only ports and/or ports that are on separate controllers. In either case, it could be a driver issue. Again, assuming XP, try Start> Run. Type "devmgmt.msc" (no quotes). Hit Enter. Are there any yellow triangles showing anywhere? Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupidity. | |
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| 04-14-12 01:42pm - 4635 days | #12 | |
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Thomas20 (0)
Active User Posts: 60 Registered: Dec 27, '09 Location: England |
I can't see any yellow triangles but when I go to the screen you mention and click on 'disk drives' a list drops down and the new drive is on the list. That's good news isn't it ? It does'nt show up in 'my computer' though so I can't see how to actually get at the data Update : There it is ! I can access it as a stand alone drive and the data is all there Thanks all for your ideas Edited on Apr 14, 2012, 02:59pm | |
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| 04-14-12 03:00pm - 4635 days | #13 | |
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RagingBuddhist (0)
Disabled User Posts: 893 Registered: Jan 23, '07 |
Did you look at the list in Computer Management (compmgmt.msc)? Does it show up as unformatted, damaged or unallocated? Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupidity. | |
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| 04-16-12 07:46am - 4633 days | #14 | |
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Cybertoad (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,158 Registered: Jan 01, '08 Location: Wash |
Going along with Budda here, another thought. Is your battery on your mother board good ? Is your hardrive settings raid or sata ? I had a funny issues a few weeks ago I was updating this PC to Win 7 Ultimate with 6 gigs of Ram, and obviously removed all power. I started up my pc there was the ram, but ARRRRRG, no hardrive. Come to find out my battery was gone thought I had replaced it a year ago but when I powered down and removed the power cord the bios would reset. When the pc is turned off but still plugged in power still is there . So replaced the battery and made sure my pc said Sata not Raid, my pc defaults to raid when the battery was dead. Not sure this will help but was interesting to me to share. Since 2007 | |
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| 04-16-12 02:31pm - 4633 days | #15 | |
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Thomas20 (0)
Active User Posts: 60 Registered: Dec 27, '09 Location: England |
Thanks everyone - I don't fully understand all the technical bits, but the good news is that I can now see my drive and get access to the data  | |
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| 07-21-12 06:53am - 4537 days | #16 | |
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Thomas20 (0)
Active User Posts: 60 Registered: Dec 27, '09 Location: England |
Solved. Edited on Jul 22, 2012, 04:02am | |
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