hard drive question

[artyman]

I have a maxtor 500gb hd which came out of my old pc.

I would like to fit it to my new dell pc, but when I opened up the ribbon at the back is a smaller size. Now I am not a techy person but I assume the 500gb hard drive is ide??

if I got a external case (usb) could I connect it to the dell via usb and use as an external drive? and also would I have to set jumper any different than slave?

If you can point me in the right direction, thanks!

if more info is needed please let me know.

And just for an addition to this post, I have scisoft sandra, it installs no problem but it wont run????

 

[iambrian]

using a usb cable to link a hd with the comp would slow things down pretty considerably. If you were to use a firewire, it would help some, but it would still not be as fast as it would be in the comp

 

[an51r]

ok the ribbon at the back u speak of is i imagine sata u can get a dongle to convert ur ide drive to sata now the speed would be that of ide but u would have the ability to connect the drive internally and if u give the model # of ur computer we could find what motherboard u have in ur computer and there is a chance u have an ide connection on ur motherboard or u may be capable of finding this out urself if u look on your motherboard for a connection similar to that on the back of ur harddrive if not here is the adapter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998001

 

[artyman]

Wow! thankyou so much for your reply.

Ok, this is the info on the mb that I got from running aida32:

Motherboard Properties
Motherboard ID <DMI>
Motherboard Name Dell Inc. Dell DXP051

Front Side Bus Properties
Bus Type Intel NetBurst
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 283 MHz (QDR)
Effective Clock 1133 MHz
Bandwidth 9067 MB/s

Motherboard Manufacturer
Company Name Dell Computer Corporation
Product Information http://www.dell.com
BIOS Download http://support.dell.com

And here is a diagram of the mb I got from the manual:

http://pictureposter.allbrand.nu/pictures/BARTY/mb.jpg

It looks like it does have ide connector, but where does the power part go?? if I do connect this way.

I am in Uk, would this adapter be ok?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Serial-ATA-SA...3QQihZ012QQcategoryZ74941QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Thankyou so much for the help you are giving me.

 

[artyman]

BLAST!!

I opened up the pc today to find that the IDE slot is taken. So I thought of the adapter from IDE to SATA.
I have looked on the net for an adapter but I fear that once the adapter is fitted to the hard drive it wont fit back in the pc!!

I am feeling so down.....