Ok so I ordered a new hdd....with a problem

Aloreth · 20 Feb 2010 at 17:26

I got a new hdd from OcUK but i just noticed this morning that there are no jumpers that come with it! It says that for single partition i need to connect pins 7-8. I don't want to plug it in without the relevant jumpers in case this some way damages it?

Where can i buy jumpers from a high street store? Already tried pc world and they dont sell em

Ryan111 · 20 Feb 2010 at 17:28

If it a SATA HDD you dont need jumpers

JonJ678 · 20 Feb 2010 at 17:38

Is this one of the new wd ones with weird formatting?

If so I believe it works fine if you ignore the jumpers, just a bit slower.

Berserker · 20 Feb 2010 at 17:56

Know anyone with an old IDE disk? There will usually be one or two on the back of those.

Aloreth · 20 Feb 2010 at 18:02

Yep its one of the new Western Digital ones. Can others confirm it wont damage it if i use it without jumpers?

Its the Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB SATA-II 64MB Cache - OEM (WD15EARS)

dont know anyone with an old IDE im afraid

arknor · 20 Feb 2010 at 18:19

rig up a paper clip

Reality|Bites · 20 Feb 2010 at 18:37

old motherboard jumper? Just ask around, somebody will have one. I bet if you asked nicely enough somebody would post you one.

McGill2010 · 20 Feb 2010 at 19:10

i use a WD caviar blue 500gb hard drive and i didnt put any jumpers on mine and it works fine

celliott · 20 Feb 2010 at 19:14

I didnt need any jumpers for my 1.5TB WD Greens

rpstewart · 20 Feb 2010 at 20:39

Aloreth said:
I got a new hdd from OcUK but i just noticed this morning that there are no jumpers that come with it! It says that for single partition i need to connect pins 7-8. I don't want to plug it in without the relevant jumpers in case this some way damages it?

Where can i buy jumpers from a high street store? Already tried pc world and they dont sell em

If it's one of the new 4K sector drives then you only need to jumper it if you're using XP. For Vista and Win7 there's no need.

Aloreth · 20 Feb 2010 at 21:16

rpstewart said:
If it's one of the new 4K sector drives then you only need to jumper it if you're using XP. For Vista and Win7 there's no need.

I am indeed using XP, cant be bothered moving to win 7 untill my next build in about 9 months

wonko · 20 Feb 2010 at 21:30

Believe you can use the wdalign utility with 4K sectors on xp instead of using the compatability mode. Failing that I may be persuaded to put some in the post.

PhillyDee · 20 Feb 2010 at 22:22

Use the jumper from your BIOS reset . . . .

Aloreth · 21 Feb 2010 at 08:16

wonko said:
Believe you can use the wdalign utility with 4K sectors on xp instead of using the compatability mode. Failing that I may be persuaded to put some in the post.

Thanks for the advice in general guys and thanks especially to wonko - very generous of you! I found a little store that sells 10 for a pound

Berserker · 21 Feb 2010 at 18:21

The consensus seems to be that you shouldn't use the jumper 'hack'. It's better either to use wdalign 'after the fact' to fix things, or to ask a friend with Vista/Win7 to format it, or to use a recent Linux Live CD to do the same. Vista, Windows 7, recent Linux etc. don't need the hack and indeed shouldn't use it (which might spell trouble when you decide to upgrade to Windows 7).