What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?

[[email protected]]

What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?

I'm asking because I need a bigger harddrive in my laptop computer. I
priced them and they are not only costly, but they are still rather
small in size. I presently have a 40GB, and an 80GB is pricey and still
small.

I dismantled the case of a 320GB portable HDD, but found the drive has
entirely different connectors. So, I cant use it.
What type are those drives? (as in IDE, SCSI, SATA, etc)

Thanks

[Good Guy[_2_]]

On 22/08/2015 22:00, wrote:
> What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?
>
> I'm asking because I need a bigger harddrive in my laptop computer. I
> priced them and they are not only costly, but they are still rather
> small in size. I presently have a 40GB, and an 80GB is pricey and still
> small.
>
> I dismantled the case of a 320GB portable HDD, but found the drive has
> entirely different connectors. So, I cant use it.
> What type are those drives? (as in IDE, SCSI, SATA, etc)
>
> Thanks
>
Portable HDs are not for internal use in your computer. They are for
connecting via your USB ports. Instead of using flash drives that are
small in terms of capacity - (2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB .... etc etc) USB HDs
(portable or desktops) are quite big - 1TB, 2, 4 and even 6TB!!!! etc.
God knows what a home user uses such big HDs for. At work it is
completely different situation and the HDs are very robust for servers.

For your computer you need internal hard drives and also you need to
make sure the connecters are compatible with your MOBO. Sometimes you
can use the adapter to make them compatible but frankly, you will better
off using external portable HDs to store your data and in time buy a new
computer with large HDs.

You also need to start using Cloud Storage because HDs can be corrupted
easily and somebody will tell you they are not meant to last more than 5
years at best. Personally, I am not in favor of very large HDs because
backing them up is a nightmare. the largest HD I have is 500GB but I
have couple of portable HDs of 1TB capacity.

Are you still using XP? If so then you really need to seriously
consider your options whether to get big HDs or not. Personally, I won't.

[Ken Blake, MVP[_4_]]

On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 16:00:03 -0500, wrote:

> What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?


Usually either IDE or SATA. SATA is more common on a newer laptop.


> I'm asking because I need a bigger harddrive in my laptop computer. I
> priced them and they are not only costly,


Costly? Not at all. Check Amazon.com. You can find 500GB drives for
around $40 USD, 1TB for around $65, and 2TB for under $100.


> but they are still rather
> small in size. I presently have a 40GB, and an 80GB is pricey and still
> small.



80GB drives are around $25, but that's a *tiny* size. I would never
recommend anything that small.

[Paul]

wrote:
> What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?
>
> I'm asking because I need a bigger harddrive in my laptop computer. I
> priced them and they are not only costly, but they are still rather
> small in size. I presently have a 40GB, and an 80GB is pricey and still
> small.
>
> I dismantled the case of a 320GB portable HDD, but found the drive has
> entirely different connectors. So, I cant use it.
> What type are those drives? (as in IDE, SCSI, SATA, etc)
>
> Thanks
>

You could use an external USB drive, then disconnect
it when traveling to town for a file download session.

The USB drive would give you a place to offload your files,
making room on the tiny internal drive for your next trip to town.

So you don't really need to swap anything.

USB1.1 = ~ 1MB/sec , really slow
USB2 = ~ 30MB/sec , acceptable but annoying
USB3 = ~200MB/sec , (number based on available cheesy USB controllers)
(UASP protocol allows better numbers too)
(200MB/sec is a "representative number" so you
won't be disappointed in your purchase.)
USB3.1 = ??? (Must wait and see...)

And there are some hard drives which will do 200MB/sec. I
was shocked when the new drive I bought for $120 or so,
turned out to be a barn burner. The seek time still sucks,
but the sustained transfer is amazing. If you transfer
many small files, the transfer speed is still 1MB/sec,
but if moving large files, you might eventually see
the 200MB/sec number.

*******

Laptop drives come in 44 pin IDE and also in SATA.
An older laptop will use IDE.

The SATA interface has 15 pin power and 7 pin data,
like a desktop drive. SATA for 1.8" drives (too small
for laptop) has a microSATA connector. The 2.5" (laptop)
and 3.5" (desktop) hard drives use the same connector.

Some laptops use "interposer" connectors. This is a
connector that fits on the laptop drive connector, and
leaves some wiggle room when the laptop is flexed or
torqued by hard contact (dropped or grabbed without
proper support). The connector can be removed,
leaving the actual hard drive connector exposed.
So if you cannot find a "matching picture" for what
you have on your hard drive, there could be a removable
thing that needs to be unplugged.

The 2.5" portable raw drive mechanisms come in various
heights. Some SSD and single-platter hard drives, may
fit within 7mm height. The 9.5mm height might be
more popular. Other drive heights might be 12.5mm
or 15mm. Some 2TB external USB enclosures with 2.5"
drives inside, have a 15mm hard drive, and it won't fit
in a laptop bay. So if your evil plan was to buy
a 2TB external and extract the drive from it, no,
it won't fit in your laptop. That's why they don't
sell that mechanism separately. You'd need a laptop
from 1995 or so, to have a laptop bay with sufficient
height to take one of those. And then the connectors
would be wrong (Laptop: IDE, drive: SATA).

Verify the height of the bay, to ensure it will fit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive

2.5-inch 5, 7, 9.5, 12.5, 15 or 19 mm

Of those, 9.5 or 12.5mm (half inch) are possibilities.
7mm is a good height for SSD, as long as it
comes with at least one plastic spacer ring.
The SSD I bought (and returned) came with
the plastic ring.

Paul

[[email protected]]

On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:20:01 -0400, Paul > wrote:

>You could use an external USB drive, then disconnect
>it when traveling to town for a file download session.
>
>The USB drive would give you a place to offload your files,
>making room on the tiny internal drive for your next trip to town.

I hate having to lug around a whole pile of stuff. My 40G HDD is filled
to 30G, and that was after I unloaded some movies and stuff. Besides
going to town to use WIFI, I like to take it to show videos to friends
and have my music available. I had to remove over half of my music and
almost all my videos recently to regain drive space. XP and all the
programs alone eat up nearly 20G.

The laptop is a Lenovo T43, from around 2006 or 2008 (something like
that). While I'd kike to go to at least a 120G, I'd be happy with an
80G, but even the used ones on Ebay are selling for around $50

I need to maintain at least 10G for downloads. Many times I download 8
or 9G in one sitting when I go to town.

The HDD is easily removable. One screw and it pops out. I will have to
measure and determine the connector type.

It's too bad the laptops dont have a little door into which one can
store a Flash Drive. Heck they sell those things with up to 128G these
days. How they can fit that much on one of them is beyond me. The
biggest one I have is 32G. But thAt alone would be perfect for my videos
and music. But I know I'd just lose it in my car if it was not contained
inside the computer, or it would get busted up in my pocket.

That is why I'd rather just get a bigger HDD.

Thanks

By the way, if I do get a bigger HDD, is there some software that will
clone XP and all the drive contents onto a portable drive or flash
drive, and allow me to put it back on the new drive? What puzzles me, is
how do I boot up the laptop with the new drive to copy it back? On my
desktop computers I would just boot from th old drive and copy the
contents to the new drive and make it bootable using Partition Magic.
OR, for Win98, I'd just boot with a DOS floppy and copy my backup of
Win98 to the new drive then run the Win98 installer over the top of it.
But Win98 was easy to transport to other drives, XP is not!

[Paul in Houston TX[_2_]]

wrote:
> What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?
>
> I'm asking because I need a bigger harddrive in my laptop computer. I
> priced them and they are not only costly, but they are still rather
> small in size. I presently have a 40GB, and an 80GB is pricey and still
> small.
>
> I dismantled the case of a 320GB portable HDD, but found the drive has
> entirely different connectors. So, I cant use it.
> What type are those drives? (as in IDE, SCSI, SATA, etc)
>
> Thanks

The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them. Obsolete.
Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T420-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B00W4AMWCI/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1440290510&sr=1-1&keywords=t420,+lenovo

[Paul]

wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:20:01 -0400, Paul > wrote:
>
>> You could use an external USB drive, then disconnect
>> it when traveling to town for a file download session.
>>
>> The USB drive would give you a place to offload your files,
>> making room on the tiny internal drive for your next trip to town.
>
> I hate having to lug around a whole pile of stuff. My 40G HDD is filled
> to 30G, and that was after I unloaded some movies and stuff. Besides
> going to town to use WIFI, I like to take it to show videos to friends
> and have my music available. I had to remove over half of my music and
> almost all my videos recently to regain drive space. XP and all the
> programs alone eat up nearly 20G.
>
> The laptop is a Lenovo T43, from around 2006 or 2008 (something like
> that). While I'd kike to go to at least a 120G, I'd be happy with an
> 80G, but even the used ones on Ebay are selling for around $50
>
> I need to maintain at least 10G for downloads. Many times I download 8
> or 9G in one sitting when I go to town.
>
> The HDD is easily removable. One screw and it pops out. I will have to
> measure and determine the connector type.
>
> It's too bad the laptops dont have a little door into which one can
> store a Flash Drive. Heck they sell those things with up to 128G these
> days. How they can fit that much on one of them is beyond me. The
> biggest one I have is 32G. But thAt alone would be perfect for my videos
> and music. But I know I'd just lose it in my car if it was not contained
> inside the computer, or it would get busted up in my pocket.
>
> That is why I'd rather just get a bigger HDD.
>
> Thanks
>
> By the way, if I do get a bigger HDD, is there some software that will
> clone XP and all the drive contents onto a portable drive or flash
> drive, and allow me to put it back on the new drive? What puzzles me, is
> how do I boot up the laptop with the new drive to copy it back? On my
> desktop computers I would just boot from th old drive and copy the
> contents to the new drive and make it bootable using Partition Magic.
> OR, for Win98, I'd just boot with a DOS floppy and copy my backup of
> Win98 to the new drive then run the Win98 installer over the top of it.
> But Win98 was easy to transport to other drives, XP is not!

You could use an "Ultrabay Slim adapter". Which has a SATA to IDE
conversion chip on the adapter, meaning the ultrabay slim must
be IDE on the connector you can see from outside the laptop.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ultrabay_Slim_SATA_HDD_Adapter

This one on Ebay is $12. The previous article says the
adapter accepts a 9.5mm drive. I hope all the drives
involved in this transfer, are that size. And when comparing the
two different ones, I can't see this "grommet" they're
referring to, which prevents the T60 one from fitting
T4x laptops. I picked these to links, to show they sell
two different solutions.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultrabay-Slim-SATA-HDD-Hard-Drive-Caddy-Adapter-Bay-for-IBM-Lenovo-T60-T61-T60P-/281127774388?hash=item41748568b4#ht_4718wt_922

http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-5mm-Ultrabay-Slim-SATA-2nd-HDD-Caddy-for-IBM-ThinkPad-T40p-T41p-T42p-T43p-T41-/280893756164?#ht_3434wt_922

*******

Otherwise, you could do the transfer, using your "technician
computer" with the two SATA cables in it :-) My technician
computer, has three SATA cables draped permanently on the
table, for all sorts of cloning and backup stuff. I never
keep the side on my computer. The technician one. My
technician machine even has an IDE connector :-) (Runs
off a Jmicron chip)

*******

Or, more realistically, you could buy a USB to SATA adapter
of some sort, and cable up the new drive to the T43 using
USB. The transfer rate would be limited to USB2 rates or so.
Which could take a while.

This is an example of an external enclosure. This is the
one I bought on an "impulse buy" at the computer store.
It doesn't have the "good" Asmedia chip that goes faster,
but it's plenty fast for this job. It comes with a power
adapter, so you never have to worry about having power to
run the drive. You can get even cheaper ones, ones without
power adapters, that power the drive from the T43 USB bus.
That's if the T43 doesn't cut off the drive for drawing
too much power at spinup.

I didn't go through the hundreds of solutions and pick
this one. It's just the one sitting on my kitchen table
right now.

NST-366S3-SV $30

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392076

That's a 3.5" enclosure, so a 2.5" drive would be swimming
in there.

And I don't really use that the way you'd think. I pulled
the PCB and LED out of the enclosure, and just sit them
on a table, and use the thing as a "dongle style" adapter.
While the casing is nice to look at, I prefer not
putting drives inside the enclosure, And run them out in
the open instead. It's a lot easier to connect and disconnect
the drives later that way.

The adapter on that one has held up well so far. I've had
a WD Black connected to it, and it didn't smoke or
anything :-)

They also make the older style dongle adapter
which is the "technician" version of an enclosure.
No enclosure to fiddle with. A reason for buying
this, is support for both SATA and IDE drives
when you need it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400416

http://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/sets/USB3SSATAIDE_Manual/USB3SSATAIDE.pdf

When you look at page 5 of the manual, you'll see there is
44 IDE, 40 IDE, 7 pin SATA, for a total of three data
interfaces. The 44 IDE is for 2.5" laptop IDE.
The 40 pin IDE is for 3.5" desktop IDE.
The 7 pin SATA is for 2.5" or 3.5" SATA drives.
This gives you more solutions than the impulse buy
enclosure I showed you, and for about the same price.
But you don't get an enclosure with it either.

For cloning, you can use Macrium Reflect Free version 6.
And it will be able to clone WinXP while WinXP is
running, and transfer it to places like your USB-connected
new drive. Once done, pull the new drive out of the
enclosure and slap it into the laptop.

When cloning a drive, after the cloning step is finished,
you boot the new drive *by itself* for the first boot.
Don't allow the new drive to "see" the old drive for
the first boot. After one boot has been done, you can
mix and match drives any way you see fit. You will be
inserting the new drive into the regular laptop bay,
at the point it's time to boot it.

Paul

[Don Phillipson[_4_]]

> wrote in message
...

> What "type" are those portable USB Harddrives?

The vendor from whom I bought yesterday sells Seagate
portable drives preformatted for Apple Mac, with
documentation how to download Windows drivers.
These appear to work OK.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[mike[_10_]]

On 8/22/2015 6:22 PM, Paul wrote:
> wrote:
>> On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:20:01 -0400, Paul > wrote:
>>
snippage ensues...
>>> You could use an external USB drive, then disconnect
>>> it when traveling to town for a file download session.
>>>
>>> The USB drive would give you a place to offload your files,
>>> making room on the tiny internal drive for your next trip to town.
>>
>>
>> It's too bad the laptops dont have a little door into which one can
>> store a Flash Drive. Heck they sell those things with up to 128G these
>> days. How they can fit that much on one of them is beyond me. The
>> biggest one I have is 32G. But thAt alone would be perfect for my videos
>> and music. But I know I'd just lose it in my car if it was not contained
>> inside the computer, or it would get busted up in my pocket.
>>
>> That is why I'd rather just get a bigger HDD.
>>
>> Thanks
An obsolete hard drive is a dead-end investment that won't work in your
next laptop.
BestBuy has been selling 128GB USB3 thumb drives for $30 lately.
Won't do usb3 in your usb2 computer, but it will in the next one.
If you can manage to get a laptop to town without breaking it,
you can surely manage a thumb drive.

[[email protected]]

On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:44:30 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> wrote:

>The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
>Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them. Obsolete.
>Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
>I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
>Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.

What's the difference between a PATA or a SATA? Are they interchangable?
Are the pins the same? What about the size?
My current drive is a Hitachi HGST Travelstar 5K100 HTS541040G9AT00.
Searching for that model, told me it's an ATA-100 type drive, not a PATA
or SATA.

I'll be happy to buy a Lenovo T420 as soon as you send me the $329 that
it costs. Till then, I'll spend $25 or less on Ebay for a bigger HDD.

I'm seeing many 2.5" drives in the 100GB or larger range for around $20,
on Ebay, but most say SATA, (which dont tell me if they will fit the
connector). My other concern is the height.... 2.5" is the width, that I
know is correct, but how do i know if the height is right, and more
important is whether the plug pins will fit.

My current drive has a total of 47 pins. Four are separated (I suppose
those are the power), then there are 44 minus one in the center, or 43
pins in a cluster.

Lastly, the drive specs day my current drive's thickness is 1/8H
What the heck does that mean? But then it also says it's 0.4 inches. Yet
some ebay ads use metric numbers, which I have no clue how to convert
from 0.4 inches. (I am terrible with math).

[[email protected]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 06:09:34 -0700, mike > wrote:

>An obsolete hard drive is a dead-end investment that won't work in your
>next laptop.

I probably wont buy another laptop for many years, unless this one dies
and cant be repaired. It took me years to save up the cash for this one.
Those of us on a fixed income cant impulse buy! But I can afford $25 or
less to buy a larger drive on Ebay.

[micky[_2_]]

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:36:26
-0500, wrote:

>On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:44:30 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> wrote:
>
>>The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
>>Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them. Obsolete.
>>Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
>>I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
>>Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.
>
>What's the difference between a PATA or a SATA? Are they interchangable?

No. PATA is what drives were not called before there was SATA, Then
they started calling the previous kind PATA to remind people they
weren't SATA.

>Are the pins the same? What about the size?

Connectors are very different. The size is the same, that is, no more
5 1/4" even for you, 3 1/2 very very common, laptops use 2 1/2".

>My current drive is a Hitachi HGST Travelstar 5K100 HTS541040G9AT00.
>Searching for that model, told me it's an ATA-100 type drive, not a PATA
>or SATA.

I think ATA is PATA. How old is the computer. If it was made before
there was SATA, there was no need for the P. There is also SCSI,
but I don't know much about them and I don't think they still sell 'em.
>
>I'll be happy to buy a Lenovo T420 as soon as you send me the $329 that
>it costs. Till then, I'll spend $25 or less on Ebay for a bigger HDD.
>
>I'm seeing many 2.5" drives in the 100GB or larger range for around $20,
>on Ebay, but most say SATA, (which dont tell me if they will fit the
>connector). My other concern is the height.... 2.5" is the width, that I
>know is correct, but how do i know if the height is right, and more
>important is whether the plug pins will fit.

The height is probably fine, but the pins would not be for 3 1/2"
drives. I can't imagine they are for 2 1/2, because they move the pins
around partly (largely?) so people won't use the wrong drive.

>My current drive has a total of 47 pins. Four are separated (I suppose
>those are the power), then there are 44 minus one in the center, or 43
>pins in a cluster.
>
>Lastly, the drive specs day my current drive's thickness is 1/8H
>What the heck does that mean? But then it also says it's 0.4 inches. Yet

Well it doesn't mean 1/8". Maybe it means 1/8th of the height of a 3
1/2" drive? Like car radios are 1 din or 2 din, (or 1/2 din?)

>some ebay ads use metric numbers, which I have no clue how to convert
>from 0.4 inches. (I am terrible with math).

Why convert? 1/8 is not metric.

And don't let Paul scare you away from USB2. It's plenty fast. Paul's
a man on the go. For us men on the chair, we don't need USB3. And
there's no point to getting an external drive that is faster than the
USB port on your laptop. In fact if your laptop is old enough, it's
USB1. But unless you're waiting for the file, even USB1 isn't that
bad**. On a desktop computer you could get a USB2 card and add that
but I don't think any such change is possible for a laptop.

**Those commercials promising upload speeds as fast as download speeds
amuse me. People who dispense files often might benefit from that, but
I bet lots more people want it, when they see they can have it. For me,
once I send the file I forget about it. I do other things and it can
take as long as it wants to finish sending. I don't even notice when
it finishes.

[Ken Blake, MVP[_4_]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:36:26 -0500, wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:44:30 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> > wrote:
>
> >The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
> >Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them. Obsolete.
> >Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
> >I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
> >Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.
>
> What's the difference between a PATA or a SATA? Are they interchangable?



No. PATA is just a more recent name for ATA (Parallel ATA, instead of
Serial ATA, SATA) which is a more recent name for IDE.

PATA, ATA, and IDE are all names for the same thing.

[Bill in Co]

wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:44:30 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> > wrote:
>
>> The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
>> Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them.
>> Obsolete.
>> Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
>> I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
>> Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.
>
> What's the difference between a PATA or a SATA? Are they interchangable?
> Are the pins the same? What about the size?
> My current drive is a Hitachi HGST Travelstar 5K100 HTS541040G9AT00.
> Searching for that model, told me it's an ATA-100 type drive, not a PATA
> or SATA.

Which means it's a PATA drive, and PATA (a parallel interface drive) and
SATA (a serial interface drive) are quite different and not interchangeable.
If your system is that old, you're stuck with using a PATA (ATA) internal
drive, and if you want one, you probably should get one as soon as you can,
as they've becoming a bit harder to get. And as Paul pointed out, check
Amazon or eBay. (The reason they're more expensive is due to supply and
demand, since they're becoming more scarce).

[Seymore4Head]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:41:00 -0500, wrote:

>On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 06:09:34 -0700, mike > wrote:
>
>>An obsolete hard drive is a dead-end investment that won't work in your
>>next laptop.
>
>I probably wont buy another laptop for many years, unless this one dies
>and cant be repaired. It took me years to save up the cash for this one.
>Those of us on a fixed income cant impulse buy! But I can afford $25 or
>less to buy a larger drive on Ebay.
>
Now that tablets are out, I don't see a reason to ever buy another
laptop.

[Ken Blake, MVP[_4_]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 19:54:32 -0400, Seymore4Head
> wrote:


> Now that tablets are out, I don't see a reason to ever buy another
> laptop.


It depends entirely on what you want to use it for. For me, who wants
to travel with a device for e-mail, reading Kindle books, and an
occasional web site, I'm with you; tablets are best. But for someone
who wants to or needs to do a significant amount of word processing, a
laptop is much better.

[Paul]

wrote:

>
> My current drive has a total of 47 pins. Four are separated (I suppose
> those are the power), then there are 44 minus one in the center, or 43
> pins in a cluster.

So in fact, both the Ultra-Slim bay and the hard
drive bay use IDE. Now, they're consistent. I wasn't
about to question your identification it was SATA.

The Ultra-Slim converter module, has a miniature IDE
connector of some sort (same form factor as an optical
drive), and the module has space for a 9.5mm SATA
drive. A chip in the converter module, converts
SATA from the drive, to IDE for the laptop end of
the connection.

Having your regular laptop bay turn out to be
IDE as well, makes then both the same standard.
Which is a bit more reasonable as a design.

44-IDE Laptop bay ---- Ultra-slim adapter --- can put 9.5mm SATA drive here

44-IDE HDD bay ------- 2.5" IDE drive (Hitachi at the moment)

It can also be sasembled this way, as long as
the optical drive tray doesn't keep popping open... :-)

44-IDE Laptop bay ---- Ultra-slim IDE optical drive

44-IDE HDD bay ------- 2.5" IDE drive (Hitachi at the moment)

*******

The hard drive pins consist of:

40 pins the same as 3.5" drives \___ 44pin 2mm connector
4 pins on the connector for power /

4 additional pins, for Master/Slave/Cable Select jumpering.

On the four power pins, a minimum of
two pins must be connected, one pin (red)
for +5V, one pin (black) for ground. It's not
clear to me, what the history of the other two
power pins is.

Paul

[[email protected]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 19:54:32 -0400, Seymore4Head
> wrote:

>On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:41:00 -0500, wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 06:09:34 -0700, mike > wrote:
>>
>>>An obsolete hard drive is a dead-end investment that won't work in your
>>>next laptop.
>>
>>I probably wont buy another laptop for many years, unless this one dies
>>and cant be repaired. It took me years to save up the cash for this one.
>>Those of us on a fixed income cant impulse buy! But I can afford $25 or
>>less to buy a larger drive on Ebay.
>>
>Now that tablets are out, I don't see a reason to ever buy another
>laptop.

My eyes aint the greatest, I want a large screen. I also want a REAL
keyboard. Tablet screens are too small and no real keyboard.

However, I do have a cheap Android tablet to play with and it gets used
when I'm travelling and dont want to lug around my laptop. I must have
my eye glasses to see it though.

[[email protected]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 15:29:20 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP" >
wrote:

>On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:36:26 -0500, wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:44:30 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
>> > wrote:
>>
>> >The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
>> >Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them. Obsolete.
>> >Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
>> >I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
>> >Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.
>>
>> What's the difference between a PATA or a SATA? Are they interchangable?
>
>
>
>No. PATA is just a more recent name for ATA (Parallel ATA, instead of
>Serial ATA, SATA) which is a more recent name for IDE.
>
>PATA, ATA, and IDE are all names for the same thing.

Thanks, at least I understand that now! Sometimes I think they make up
all those names just to confuse people....

[[email protected]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 18:25:50 -0400, micky >
wrote:

>And don't let Paul scare you away from USB2. It's plenty fast. Paul's
>a man on the go. For us men on the chair, we don't need USB3. And
>there's no point to getting an external drive that is faster than the
>USB port on your laptop. In fact if your laptop is old enough, it's
>USB1. But unless you're waiting for the file, even USB1 isn't that
>bad**. On a desktop computer you could get a USB2 card and add that
>but I don't think any such change is possible for a laptop.
>
>**

How fast does Paul go? Does he exceed the 640K limit?
(That would be 640,000 footsteps per second....) :) <LOL>

---

I'm used to slow USB ports. My Win98 machine only has USB1.
Years ago, I added a card to it for USB2, and it was a big improvement.
But that card apparently died last year, because it stopped working no
matter what slot I put it in. I should buy another card, but I just live
with the built in USB1 for now.

I think my Lenovo T43 laptop is USB2, but I'm not sure. I've never known
a way to test them to see what they are. But it's faster than the Win98
machine. My XP desktop is faster yet, but I know it's too old for USB3,
so It must also be USB2. Either way, I'm never in that much of a hurry,
I just let it do it's thing, while I do other stuff. However, doing a
backup on the Win98 machine can take many hours. I have around 200GB of
data to backup, (on 7 partitions). The BIG partition (65GB) takes half a
day. It's entirely filled with videos too, and they seeem to take longer
to backup than the same amount of smaller files.

[micky[_2_]]

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:15:34
-0600, "Bill in Co" > wrote:

>
>Which means it's a PATA drive, and PATA (a parallel interface drive) and
>SATA (a serial interface drive) are quite different and not interchangeable.
>If your system is that old, you're stuck with using a PATA (ATA) internal
>drive, and if you want one, you probably should get one as soon as you can,
>as they've becoming a bit harder to get. And as Paul pointed out, check
>Amazon or eBay.

Yeah, Amazon has left-over stock sometime, or even just left-over
listings that point to used stock, or so it seems.

> (The reason they're more expensive is due to supply and
>demand, since they're becoming more scarce).

If Radar is worried about dimensions, he should find his current HDD and
measure it. I'm sure it's the same size as all the other PATA drives,
but he has to find the HDD eventually.

And for copying the data off one drive to the other, he can get that
thing, a Rosewill RCW618. About $20 iirc but the only way I know to
copy to a bare drive, like his new one will be. Unless he can borrow
it or the one competitor, whose name I forget. the RCW618 is called a
"SATA/IDE to detachable USb 2.0 Adapter (Supports 2.5",3.5" & 5&25
IDE/SATA Drive)" It has its own power supply for bigger drives but runs
off of the USB power for 2.5" drivee.

[micky[_2_]]

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 03:16:01
-0400, micky > wrote:

>
>If Radar is worried about dimensions, he should find his current HDD and
>measure it. I'm sure it's the same size as all the other PATA drives,
>but he has to find the HDD eventually.
>
>And for copying the data off one drive to the other, he can get that
>thing, a Rosewill RCW618. About $20 iirc but the only way I know to

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Adapter-Supports-Windows-RCW-618/dp/B00558I7Z2

8 reviews, all of them 5-stars.

BlacX makes docks for SATA, 3 1/2 and 2 1/2 can use the same dock.

But afaik no one makes docks for bare IDE drives. (They make
enclosures, but they take too much time IMO, and I lost one or two of
the two screws)

This comes with a rubber holder that protects the corners and maybe
edges.

"I've successfully used this to recover data from working as well as
failing drives (sometimes have to freeze the drives first - then keep an
ice pack on the drive while attempting to access it)."

I put a drive in the freezer once for a while and it worked, but I never
thought to put an ice pack on it while using it. Great idea.

>copy to a bare drive, like his new one will be. Unless he can borrow
>it or the one competitor, whose name I forget. the RCW618 is called a
>"SATA/IDE to detachable USb 2.0 Adapter (Supports 2.5",3.5" & 5&25
>IDE/SATA Drive)" It has its own power supply for bigger drives but runs
>off of the USB power for 2.5" drivee.

[Ken Blake, MVP[_4_]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 20:53:21 -0500, wrote:

> My eyes aint the greatest, I want a large screen.


Although you *can* use a large screen to make everything bigger,
that's not its general use. To do that means running it at a low
resolution, and that makes the image poorer, and generally makes it
harder to read.

Larger screens should be run at higher resolutions, and the result is
that most of what you see is around the same size as it would be on a
smaller screen.

So why have a larger screen? So you can fit more on it at once--more
applications, more of a word processing document, more spreadsheet
cells, etc.



> I also want a REAL keyboard.



Me too. Tablet screens are much harder to use.


> Tablet screens are too small and no real keyboard.


Although tablets don't come with real keyboards, note that you *can*
buy a small, lightweight keyboard to use with it. You might want to
consider doing that.


> However, I do have a cheap Android tablet to play with and it gets used
> when I'm travelling and dont want to lug around my laptop.



Same here. But I also carry my small, lightweight keyboard.

[Ken Blake, MVP[_4_]]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 20:59:55 -0500, wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 15:29:20 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP" >
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:36:26 -0500, wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:44:30 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
> >> > wrote:
> >>
> >> >The T43 has a 2.5" pata drive. Yes, they cost more than sata nowadays.
> >> >Check Amazon or Ebay. Microcenter and Fry's no longer carry them. Obsolete.
> >> >Might be time to upgrade to a T420 with w7/64.
> >> >I have a 410 7/32 and a 420 7/64 for work.
> >> >Both are great machines but the 420 is twice as fast as the 410.
> >>
> >> What's the difference between a PATA or a SATA? Are they interchangable?
> >
> >
> >
> >No. PATA is just a more recent name for ATA (Parallel ATA, instead of
> >Serial ATA, SATA) which is a more recent name for IDE.
> >
> >PATA, ATA, and IDE are all names for the same thing.
>
> Thanks, at least I understand that now! Sometimes I think they make up
> all those names just to confuse people....


You're welcome. I'm almost always against changing names of things,
whether its computer things or anything else. It does nothing but
confuse people. I'm no longer in New York City, but more than once, I
was on the Avenue of the Americas there when someone came up to me and
asked me where Sixth Avenue was.

[Ken Blake, MVP[_4_]]

On Mon, 24 Aug 2015 05:22:09 -0400, micky >
wrote:


> But afaik no one makes docks for bare IDE drives. (They make
> enclosures, but they take too much time IMO, and I lost one or two of
> the two screws)



I don't agree. It takes only a few seconds to put an IDE drive into an
enclosure. There are only two plugs to connect. Screwing it in isn't
necessary.

[Paul]

micky wrote:

>
> But afaik no one makes docks for bare IDE drives.

They do, but you missed that generation of hardware.

They used to make a "Tray" that holds an IDE drive.
And it had a "hot insert" connector on the end. And
you could slide it into an enclosure intended for the
purpose. People were supposed to own more trays than
enclosure slots, and slide the drive trays in when needed.

I never owned one, and haven't seen closeup pictures,
so can't tell you any more about it than that.

*******

The thing is, the SATA standard was designed from the
start, for server applications. That's why the connector
is so goofy. It's designed to slide into a server backplane,
with capture characteristics so the connector won't jam.
Using the SATA drive on a desktop was an afterthought.
That's why the first generation red SATA data cables,
had poor retention characteristics. Because nobody
spent more than ten minutes designing them, and forget
that the cables would fall off when they were finished.

Whereas the IDE connector on hard drives, the connector
is likely to have existed before the hard drive
application came along. And they just soldered that sucker
to the drive, without thinking about it too much. It
was considered that all applications would involve
ribbon cables. But later, the market developed the
hot insert enclosure, with the intention of having
enclosures and trays. But the IDE connector has poor
characteristics to work directly (slide insert),
so a more capture-friendly interposing connector
was placed on the end of the tray housing, so it
would mate (without crushing pins) in the enclosure
slot.

If you've worked with IDE drives enough, sooner or later
you crush one of those pins at 90 degrees, snap it off
when trying to repair it, and learn a valuable lesson
while doing so. The IDE connector works well as long
as the "lubrication" and finish of the connector are
in good shape. If the frictional characteristics
change, then bad things happen to IDE.

Paul

[[email protected]]

On Mon, 24 Aug 2015 15:44:51 -0400, Paul > wrote:

>They do, but you missed that generation of hardware.
>
>They used to make a "Tray" that holds an IDE drive.
>And it had a "hot insert" connector on the end. And
>you could slide it into an enclosure intended for the
>purpose. People were supposed to own more trays than
>enclosure slots, and slide the drive trays in when needed.
>
>I never owned one, and haven't seen closeup pictures,
>so can't tell you any more about it than that.

I'd like to get some of those. That way I could just plug in my regular
HD, and when I want to test Linux or something else, just plug in
another drive, without having to keep ripping the computer apart.

I dont even put the case covers on computers anymore, because in the
next few days, I'll have to open it up again....

What would I search for on Ebay to find some of those Trays? I imagine
there is a special name for them....

[Paul]

wrote:

> I'd like to get some of those. That way I could just plug in my regular
> HD, and when I want to test Linux or something else, just plug in
> another drive, without having to keep ripping the computer apart.
>
> I dont even put the case covers on computers anymore, because in the
> next few days, I'll have to open it up again....
>
> What would I search for on Ebay to find some of those Trays? I imagine
> there is a special name for them....
>

This one is listed as "discontinued". You can see it uses a
Centronics 50 pin, for the internal connector scheme.

https://sewelldirect.com/kingwin-kf-21-ipf-beige-aluminum-mobile-rack-for-35-ide-hard-drive

This Ebay item, is the tray that slides into the rack. It
has an IDE cable on one end, Centronics on the tray end.
The right-most shot, shows where the hard drive
itself will be sitting.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KingWin-Black-IDE-Inner-Tray-for-3-5-HDD-Rack-Series-KF-21-IT-NEW-/321786037771?hash=item4aebf1460b#ht_118wt_1039

The handle is on the front of that tray, so you have a grip
to use while pulling it out of the rack.

Paul

[Nil[_5_]]

On 24 Aug 2015, Paul > wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> They used to make a "Tray" that holds an IDE drive.
> And it had a "hot insert" connector on the end. And
> you could slide it into an enclosure intended for the
> purpose. People were supposed to own more trays than
> enclosure slots, and slide the drive trays in when needed.

I used to use those all the time. I had two or three OSs and backup
drives that I could slip in and out. The trays were fairly inexpensive.
I've probably still got some of them in my big box o' parts.

[mike[_10_]]

On 8/24/2015 3:14 PM, Paul wrote:
> wrote:
>
>> I'd like to get some of those. That way I could just plug in my regular
>> HD, and when I want to test Linux or something else, just plug in
>> another drive, without having to keep ripping the computer apart.
>> I dont even put the case covers on computers anymore, because in the
>> next few days, I'll have to open it up again....
>>
>> What would I search for on Ebay to find some of those Trays? I imagine
>> there is a special name for them....
>>
>
> This one is listed as "discontinued". You can see it uses a
> Centronics 50 pin, for the internal connector scheme.
>
> https://sewelldirect.com/kingwin-kf-21-ipf-beige-aluminum-mobile-rack-for-35-ide-hard-drive
>
>
> This Ebay item, is the tray that slides into the rack. It
> has an IDE cable on one end, Centronics on the tray end.
> The right-most shot, shows where the hard drive
> itself will be sitting.
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/KingWin-Black-IDE-Inner-Tray-for-3-5-HDD-Rack-Series-KF-21-IT-NEW-/321786037771?hash=item4aebf1460b#ht_118wt_1039
>
>
> The handle is on the front of that tray, so you have a grip
> to use while pulling it out of the rack.
>
> Paul
I've got 28 of them, mostly re-purposed TIVO drives, with various OS
installs for different purposes.
They work well.
You have to be a little careful because it's almost a standard.
Emphasis on the "almost". There are variations in the handle/lever.
Most can be fixed by cutting off some plastic, but some can't.
There are also variations in the cooling fan location and vents that
can make the mismatched caddy/drive run hot. I killed one hard
drive in the time it took to load windows. Many have a switch
that shuts off power when you unlock the key. Variations in
that key/locking mechanism caused me to short out the key switch
and cut off the locking pin. I've accidentally ejected the drive
onto the floor while moving the computer.

I've found them far superior to dual booting.

Depending on your stock of extra drives, I'd go with the caddyless
SATA versions.