Hard drive confusion!!!

manic111

manic111

manic111

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I have an old laptop hard drive (a 60GB WD 600 Scorpio) sitting around, and feel that I should be putting it to some use! I've been looking at hard drive enclosures, and frankly have no idea what this is.

It says on the top of it that it is an enhanced IDE (EIDE) drive. I've read conflicting reports online about whether EIDE is the same thing, or at least compatible with, PATA. Wikipedia, at least, implies this, and in my opinion Wikipedia might as well be law!!! I have also seen a lot of cheap, nice looking PATA enclosures around.

Can anyone tell me if my drive would fit in a PATA enclosure? Help would be really appreciated :D
 
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Western digital uses the EIDE phrase but as far as I'm aware it's the same as IDE/ATA.

Is this a 2.5" drive? If so make sure the enclosure accommodates the smaller size but other than that I don't forsee any problem in using it in this way....
 
Yep, it's 2.5". I've seen a few PATA 2.5" enclosures going for under a tenner, so will probably just risk it.

I did, though, try to plug it in to an IDE cable in my current desktop, and it wouldn't fit. Are the pins on IDE different to PATA/EIDE then? Or is my drive something else?

All these "old school" drive phrases are far too confusing...give me SATA any day :D
 
Jinxter said:
The IDE cable should fit it - you sure you wasn't trying to connect via a floppy drive connector?
Click to expand...

Quite sure...was using the same cable that goes into my IDE DVD drive!

Might switch off and have another go. If it doesn't fit, what then? Maybe I've got some sort of freak drive :D
 
OK my bad, it would appear your laptop drive uses a smaller sized interface and if you were to use it within your PC case then a convertor can be bought to make it compatible with standard sized IDE cable (you'd have to google as I cannot give direct link but there's plenty about). However you'd have to do some research to see if it fits straight into the enclosure. Does it have a separate power connector as some of these laptop HD are powered off the IDE interface itself (and yes there are convertors which have a four pin molex to give power straight to the IDE going to the laptop drive) Hope this helps....
 
Nope, my drive has got more pins closer together. If I can count correctly, moving horizontally (holding the drive with the sticker facing up) my drive has 2 rows of pins laid out like this:

...................... ..
............ ......... ..

Top row has 22 along, then a space, then 2 more

Bottom row has 12 along, then a space, then 9 more, then a space, then 2 more.


My IDE cable has these holes:

....................
......... ..........

20 on the top row

10 on the bottom, then a gap, then 9 more.


Firstly, just to check, is this an IDE cable I have? It fits into my IDE DVD drive fine...

Secondly, does this help point out what sort of drive I have?


EDIT: With regard to your above post, my drive doesn't have a second power cable; I assume that the 4 pins on their own at one end proved the power (at a guess). Any chance you could be more specific what to Google? What is my drive's interface called?
 
Yes the latter is 40 pin IDE cable. Unsure about the interface on the laptop though, will have to do some research on this but I'll have to leave it for now as need to hit the sack. I would do some research on convertors / interfaces but I expect some of those extra pins are for power for which convertors exist to accommodate...
 
OK I'll let you get to bed. Cheers for the help!

Based on my research (and the below photos) what I have is indeed PATA, which the drive enclosures I'm looking at do claim to accomodate. Might be worth a purchase; for a tenner I can't go too far wrong :)

PATA:
28kqcdh.jpg


IDE:
2iagbrd.jpg


EIDE (cable, couldn't find a drive)
uwiux.jpg


My drive matches the PATA image, but not the EIDE one, despite saying EIDE on top of the drive. I'm thoroughly confused again!
 
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The drive has a miniature IDE interface, nothing unusual at all :)
This is directly compatible with the PC variety, using the appropriate adaptor.
No 2.5" IDE drive I've ever come across has an extra power connector.

Any 2.5" IDE/ PATA enclosure will work with the drive.

Finally, PATA & EIDE are pretty much different terms for the same thing.

-Leezer-
 
leezer3 said:
The drive has a miniature IDE interface, nothing unusual at all :)
This is directly compatible with the PC variety, using the appropriate adaptor.

Any 2.5" IDE/ PATA enclosure will work with the drive.

PATA & EIDE are pretty much different terms for the same thing.

-Leezer-
Click to expand...

But the EIDE cable pictured above wouldn't fit the PATA pins pictured above...everyone keeps saying that they're the same things and I'm getting more and more confused :D

EDIT: Or is the EIDE cable pictured above a desktop EIDE cable, while what I have is a laptop, therefore miniature EIDE drive...which is the same as a PATA drive...which is the same as a miniature IDE drive...my head hurts:rolleyes:
 
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The IDE interface on a laptop HDD (2.5") has both the data and power pins in the same block and as others have said is smaller.

As sharlaw has said if you want to use the drive on a desktop machine you'll have to use an adapter. If you want a nice caddy for it for external use have a look at an Icy Box, i've had a few of them and they're pretty nice.
 
EIDE stands for Enhanced IDE and was introduced in 1994 to replace the slower IDE interface. It has since been upgraded over time so essentially all modern PATA drives are EIDE as opposed to IDE. The Enhanced bit seems to have been dropped from the name over the years. Essentially though, IDE and EIDE are one of the same.

A Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT_Attachment
Non-wikipedia source: http://www.techadvice.com/tech/E/EIDE.htm

Laptop IDE/EIDE drives use a different connector from desktop ones, as mentioned you will need an adapter.
 
Buy a USB laptop drive caddy.
That's what I did, and I now have a easily portable 60gb USB drive.

Awesome, and for under a fiver, you cant really complain.

:)
 
Those 2.5" PATA [EIDE/IDE/Whatever] dongles are the mutts for utilising old laptop drives. I used to work with a lot of laptops and had about five of the things [drives] and two adaptoids. I just removed the adapter from the case and swapped the things around all the time.

2.5" drives are seriously tough wee buggers - I had a pair of them [one containing ghost images, another containing apps] for rebuilding PCs, spent three years at the bottom of my backpack getting all kinds of abuse, the drives and adaptoids still work fine to this day. :D

Quick rundown of form factors for drives that You Will See:
3.5" 'full size' IDE/PATA: older varation of the ATA interface: used on 3.5" drives, it's the one you normally think of when you see ribbon cables in PCs.

2.5" 'small' IDE/PATA: As above, but with a different socket/pin arrangement. Slightly slimmer, no powe connector on the drive as it's done through the cable. You can get adapters that take a standard 'full size' cable and four pin power supply, and that then swaps the various pins around to make the 'small' drive talk to the 'big' cable. falling out of favour these days what with SATA drives being more common.

Normally connected to a laptop via a small block that accepts male connectors on both sides for a snug fit. Laptop drives often come in 'secure' cages - just use a small screwdriver to take them apart and wedge any blocks off the disk drive, and to replace the drive, reverse the process. :)

SATA connector: flat, seven pin [IIRC] connector, a serial version of the ATA interface [hence the name - Serial ATA, as opposed to Parralell ATA which is PATA]. Power cable looks similar to the data cable, but is wider. Same connectors used on both large and small drives. very handy for building quiet PCs as you don't need to plug in adapters etc to make a silent, low power laptop/2.5" drive talk to a desktop motherboard. Also used on SSDs.

Anyway, just get the USB adaptoid and be happy with yoru magical extra 60gb of portable storage fo the cost of a couple of pints. :)
 
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