How to install a SATA hard drive on an old motherboard with only IDE ports. Connecting a SATA hard drive to an old motherboard

The other day they brought me a problematic PC, suffering from brakes, freezes and other glitches. Its far from young motherboard has only an IDE interface, so the new terabyte SATA-HDD was connected using a specially purchased SATA PCI controller (on a VIA VT6421 chip). System log Windows events was full of messages about disk operation errors, which apparently was the cause of the problems.

Checking the HDD (SMART, surface, file system), replacing the SATA cable did not correct the situation. With the old IDE disk, the computer used to work stably, the BIOS was in motherboard the latter was sewn up, so suspicion fell on the operation of the SATA controller. Moreover, in the magazine Windows errors his name sometimes also “blushed.” But experiments with the controller did not bring much success - neither updating the drivers nor moving it to another PCI slot helped. Is it true, HDD it seemed to behave better when connected to another SATA port of the controller, but even here another “ambush” awaited - with a DVD drive connected through the second SATA port, the controller for some reason stubbornly refused to boot the system from the HDD. In general, either the controller itself was very crooked, or it was simply not “friendly” with this motherboard or hard drive. By the way, reviews about controllers on these chips on the Internet are not flattering -

The solution was to replace the controller with a similar one, and preferably on a different chip, so as not to encounter the same problems. This is, of course, if you do not resort to a radical and troublesome method - replacing the motherboard. In our stores, among the inexpensive options, they mainly offered products based on the same VT6421... And then I saw this thing on sale - costing only about 400 rubles, I became interested and decided to try it. As a result, the SATA HDD connected to the IDE connector through this “cunning piece of hardware” was seen by the BIOS as if it were an IDE drive and started working without any errors. The HDD activity LED on the system unit happily began to fulfill its duties, from which it had previously been relieved by the “good” PCI controller. I left the DVD drive connected as it was, via the SATA controller on the VIA chip, because... There were no problems reading or writing CDs.

The converter is quite compact, receives energy through the FDD power connector (an additional adapter is included in the kit), has a data transfer indicator, and does not require any drivers. In addition, due to its bidirectionality, it also allows you to use an IDE drive via a SATA interface. In the case when you need to connect one device and there is no need for RAID arrays, this is a pretty good economical alternative to PCI controllers.

Installing a hard drive on a computer is not a difficult task and there is nothing to be afraid of if you have to do it yourself, even if you are using your computer. open form never seen. I’ll explain everything to you now, and everything will work out for you.

Installing a hard drive on your computer will be required if you are going to update your device, are building a computer from scratch, or want second HDD. This instruction will help you in the first two cases. But in case HDD replacement I won’t tell you how to remove the old one, I think there won’t be any problems with that, but I’ll just show you how to install the new one correctly. But I’ll tell you about connecting the second hard drive some other time.

Installing a new hard drive begins by screwing it to the case. This is done using bolts. There are threaded holes in the hard drive case, and grooves in the computer case. It is screwed through them.

Make sure that installed device ventilation inside the system unit will not interfere, and also that all wires and cables can easily reach it without tension.

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Connecting the hard drive to the motherboard

The bolts are fixed, and we move on to the wires and cables. Connect the HDD with which it will communicate with it.

Depending on the HDD type, they will be different - ATA (IDE) and SATA. The first is older, the second is new, but both types are still on sale.

The IDE hard drive is connected to the motherboard using a cable that differs big amount contacts, pins, and therefore it is wide. The cable has a lock that prevents it from being connected incorrectly. Therefore, it is impossible to make a mistake. Connect with using the IDE HDD cable and motherboard.

Connecting a hard drive SATA drive occurs using a narrow train. It will be impossible to mix up the connection sockets on the motherboard, since SATA will only fit into the correct connector. Use a SATA cable to connect the HDD to the motherboard.

Connecting the hard drive to power

In hard IDE drives and SATA, the power cables are also different. Most are for one or the other type or there are special adapters.

To connect hard drives IDE uses a 4-pin Peripheral Power Connector. For tough ones SATA drives needed SATA connector Power Connector. In both cases, you can't mix up the connections, so don't worry about doing anything wrong.

Differences between connecting IDE and SATA hard drives

It would seem that the connection procedure is the same, but in fact IDE is slightly different from SATA in that it requires setting the position of the jumper, the so-called jumper.

The motherboard is usually equipped with a pair of connectors for IDE devices, and two devices can be connected to each. Each pair can have one master device and one slave, and it is impossible for two to be identical. The hard drive must be in master position if Windows is booted from it. The second device in the same connection branch must be a slave.

If all this is difficult to understand, then simply set the jumper to master if your computer only has one hard drive.

You can find the jumper connection card on the case itself. hard drive.

There are no such problems with SATA. Master and slave positions are set via BIOS. When connecting a SATA hard drive, you will need to configure it as bootable if it has an operating system installed.

A modern computer is equipped with many interfaces and allows you to connect great amount peripherals and components. Increased quality of video materials and computer games demands everything more space on your hard drive. 50-100 GB for a movie high quality- today's reality. Sooner or later, the user is faced with the fact that the computer runs out of space. How to solve a problem? Remove everything unnecessary or connect an additional drive.

SSD or HDD - which drive to connect to the PC?

If you have updated your PC long enough, then the best solution it would be install modern SSD to speed up the system. Additional SSD the drive must be used to install the OS and application programs, which will speed up your computer and reduce the startup time of applications. If you do not have enough 300-500GB of space, then it is not advisable to use an SSD for storing audio and video files. The good old HDD will come to the rescue, and its cost is several times cheaper than an SSD.

Methods for connecting a new HDD to a PC

Old HDDs were equipped IDE interface to connect to a PC. Now IDE connectors are not used, but have given way to modern SATA. All modern computer motherboards are equipped with several SATA connectors for connecting a new hard drive. To install a hard drive into a computer, 2 cables are used - a data cable and a power cable.

Power for a new hard drive

All modern power supplies have connectors for powering an HDD or SSD with SATA interface. If your power supply does not have a suitable connector, then you can buy a power adapter from Molex (for IDE) to Sata to connect a new one.

Data cable for new hard drive

IDE and Sata drives use data cables different types. Hard disks old-style IDE drives are connected with a wide cable, while SATA drives use a thin SATA-Data cable. It is impossible to confuse them and you will not be able to connect an IDE drive to a computer using a Sata cable.

Installing a new hard drive on a desktop computer

To install a new hard drive you will need:

1. The new drive itself.
2. Power cable from the power supply (or Molex-Sata power adapter).
3. Data cable.
4. Free connection connector on the motherboard.
5. 2-4 bolts for fixing the hard drive in the system unit bay.

How to connect a hard drive to a computer

First, we install a new hard drive in a special compartment in the system unit. We fasten it with bolts and connect the data and power cable. After that, turn on the computer's power and boot the PC. In some cases, the new hard drive may be detected as the main one and the computer will try to boot from it. You will receive an error message (because the new drive does not have an operating system installed). In this case, you need to change the priority order and boot from hard drives in the BIOS. After loading the OS Windows new The disk will be detected automatically. but to use it you need to create partitions on it, format them in a suitable file system- NTFS or FAT32.

How to connect sata hdd to ide
Just in case, let’s immediately point out external differences. IDE – also known as ATA – Advanced Technology Attachment and later – PATA – standard interface connecting hard drives and drives to a PC was popular in the 90s and early 2000s. It is a wide, 40-pin cable. SATA ( Serial ATA) - the standard that later replaced it, became popular in the mid-2000s and is still relevant today, much smaller - 7 contacts versus 40.
With the passage of time and the evolution of progress in the market, new, high-speed interfaces are replacing the old ones, and the problem of compatibility inevitably arises - is it worth throwing away an HDD that is incompatible by default? modern system? Or vice versa - if the outdated motherboard does not have SATA controller (this interface is the current standard), and the well-worn forty gig screw with an 80-pin cable has given a long life - you will be surprised to find that in the near future computer store such a rarity can no longer be found, but the machine should still work... But how can it be paired with a relatively new sata hdd to ide? We will try to answer these questions.
How to connect SATA HDD to IDE?
The solution to both problems lies on the surface - a HDD with an old interface is very difficult to find in a store, but here is a controller that makes it easy to make almost any new hard drive work on the old system- quite! As a rule, this is a small chip, on one side of which there is an output for an IDE cable (the 40-pin wire itself is plugged into the corresponding output on the motherboard and into the controller), and on the other - SATA (connects directly to the hard drive) and 4-pin power supply ( comes from the PC power supply).
Nuances and disadvantages
It is worth considering that if you have a well-worn computer, then with a high degree of probability its power supply is old - and the hard drive SATA power in some cases different from that of the IDE (i.e. not MOLEX) - you need either new block, or another adapter (it’s not difficult to find one, but its price is pretty cheap).

There is also one obvious disadvantage of this approach - if the hard drive is designed for SATA and takes advantage of this interface, then when connected via the old bus, the speed will be noticeably limited: even the very first revision of Serial ATA gives in theory from 150 MB / s versus 133 in IDE, and in bandwidth the difference is several times not in favor of the outdated port. Otherwise, you can even connect an SSD to an old system, but the higher the speed indicators of the connected media, the more noticeable the loss in speed will be.
Also, do not forget that old hardware often has an outdated operating system, which may not support partitions larger than 2 TB or even file NTFS system. For majority decision similar problems you will need a program to work with HDD partitions - you will need to properly partition and format the volumes so that the OS can see them and install on them. In some cases (for example, in the case of excessive large volumes at 32x bit systems and Windows XP) there is nothing to be done, and you will have to put up with the limitation.
How to connect IDE HDD to SATA?

The story is approximately the same in the opposite case, with the only difference that a problem with power supply for the media will be less likely and there will be no speed restrictions, only you need to keep in mind that an IDE hard drive connected to a modern PC may become tasks have a “bottleneck” – even for new HDDs with high speed spindle rotation and with SATA interface latest version performance is far from exorbitant - the gain from the same SSD is more than noticeable, therefore, at a minimum, we do not recommend installing it on an outdated screw operating system. Also keep in mind that IDE devices, unlike SATA, do not support “hot swap” - i.e. they cannot be connected or disconnected while the computer is running - there is a high probability of failure of either the device itself or the controller that is responsible for its operation!
ISA/PCI/PCIexpress controllers
There are also expansion cards for PCI connector– if there is one on the board, then you can organize the connection of drives using it. Such boards may have 2 or more SATA connectors and one IDE - do not forget that it is possible to connect two devices to it simultaneously. The disadvantage of this approach is that by default the OS or its installer may not support it (the PCI controller), and this will lead to additional headaches with creating bootable media with drivers. Plus, controllers on some chips are poorly compatible with certain systems– either they will not be detected at all, or it will be impossible to select such a thing in the BIOS HDD bootable(basically, such PCi boards have their own “mini-Bios” and their own disk tree), or the computer with it will refuse to turn on at all. Often these problems cannot be solved unless updating the motherboard firmware can help.

There is also one more nuance - PCI standard There have been many revisions, and the old ones support a much lower data transfer rate, which can also impose some limitations. On very ancient ones personal computers, which appeared before the widespread use of PCI, have an ISA bus at their disposal - there are IDE controllers for it. But due to technical limitations, when connecting a drive with more or less normal characteristics to them, the outdated bus will become a serious limitation, and with the help complex circuit(ISA IDE->SATA) you can connect almost any hard drive. For modern motherboards without a PCI connector (and there are more and more of them), there are combined solutions for PCIexress/miniPCiexpress, which have both IDE and SATA. There are far fewer problems with their support, although the speed advantage of the new express standard over the old PCI will not significantly increase the performance of the drive (if we are talking about IDE).

The time has come when one hard drive in a computer is no longer enough. More and more users decide to connect a second HDD to their PC, but not everyone knows how to do it correctly themselves to avoid mistakes. In fact, the procedure for adding a second disk is simple and does not require special skills. It is not even necessary to mount the hard drive - it can be connected as external device, if there is a free USB port.

Connection options second hard disk are as simple as possible:

• Connecting the HDD to the computer system unit.
  Suitable for owners of regular desktop PCs who do not want to have external connected devices.
• Connecting hard drive as an external drive.
  The easiest way HDD connections, and the only one possible for a laptop owner.

Option 1. Installation in the system unit

HDD type determination

Before connecting, you need to determine the type of interface the hard drive works with - SATA or IDE. Almost everything modern computers are equipped with a SATA interface, so it is best if the hard drive is of the same type. The IDE bus is considered obsolete and may simply not be present on the motherboard. Therefore, connecting such a drive may cause some difficulties.

The easiest way to recognize the standard is by contacts. This is what they look like on SATA drives:

And this is how the IDE does it:

Connecting a second SATA drive in the system unit

The process of connecting a disk is very easy and takes place in several stages:

Boot priority for SATA drives

The motherboard usually has 4 connectors for connecting SATA drives. They are designated as SATA0 - the first, SATA1 - the second, etc. The priority of the hard drive is directly related to the numbering of the connector. If you need to manually set the priority, you will need to go into the BIOS. Depending on the BIOS type, the interface and controls will be different.

In older versions, go to the section Advanced BIOS Features and work with the parameters First Boot Device And Second Boot Device. In new BIOS versions look for the section Boot or Boot Sequence and parameter 1st/2nd Boot Priority.

Connecting a second IDE drive

In rare cases, there is a need to install a disk with an outdated IDE interface. In this case, the connection process will be slightly different.

Connecting a second IDE drive to the first SATA drive

When you need to connect an IDE drive to an already working SATA HDD, use a special IDE-SATA adapter.

The connection diagram is as follows:

1. The jumper on the adapter is set to Master mode.
2. The IDE plug connects to the hard drive itself.
3. The red SATA cable is connected on one side to the adapter, and the other to the motherboard.
4. The power cable is connected on one side to the adapter, and on the other to the power supply.

You may need to purchase a 4-pin to SATA adapter.

Initializing the disk in the OS

In both cases, after connecting, the system may not see the connected disk. This does not mean that you did something wrong, on the contrary, it is normal when new HDD not visible in the system. The hard drive must be initialized before it can be used. Read about how this is done in our other article.

Option 2. Connecting an external hard drive

Often users choose to connect external HDD. This is much simpler and more convenient if some files stored on the disk are sometimes needed outside the home. And in the situation with laptops, this method will be especially relevant, since there is a separate slot for second HDD not provided there.

An external hard drive is connected via USB in exactly the same way as another device with the same interface (flash drive, mouse, keyboard).

Hard drive designed to be installed in system unit, can also be connected via USB. To do this, you need to use either an adapter/adapter or a special external case for the hard drive. The essence of the operation of such devices is similar - through the adapter the HDD is supplied required voltage, and the connection to a PC is via USB. Hard drives of different form factors have their own cables, so when purchasing you should always pay attention to the standard that sets dimensions your HDD.

If you decide to connect the drive using the second method, then literally follow 2 rules: do not neglect safe removal devices and do not disconnect the disk while working with the PC to avoid errors.

We talked about ways to connect a second hard drive to a computer or laptop. As you can see, there is nothing complicated in this procedure and it is absolutely not necessary to use the services of computer specialists.