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I have an old external HD which isn't responding when I plug it in. I have a SATA cable so I'm going to hook it up directly to my motherboard to see what happens. Are there any precautions or special steps I need to know, or can I just power off the PC, plug it in, and power back on? Do I need to do anything in the BIOS?
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Feb 19, 2020 21:54
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:22 |
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Thanks! I'll give it a shot.
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Feb 19, 2020 23:53
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me your dad posted:I have an old external HD which isn't responding when I plug it in. I have a SATA cable so I'm going to hook it up directly to my motherboard to see what happens. Actuarial Fables posted:That's pretty much it, just don't forget the power cable for the HDD too. If your computer complains that it can't find an OS you'll have to adjust the boot order in BIOS. So I opened my HD case and found a spare SATA cable this afternoon in hopes of getting this thing to be accessible. Actuarial Fables mentioned to power cable, which I didn't think would be necessary for some reason (I still have it, that's fine). However, when I took the HD out of the enclosure, I found this:   The enclosure had a separate chip with the USB input and the power input that is separate from the HD itself. The problem is that to connect the HD to the power cable, it needs to be plugged into that little chip, and the chip occupies the SATA slot in the HD.  Here it is assembled:  Does anyone have any advice? me your dad fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Feb 23, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 21:47
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Geemer posted:Those connectors are just standard SATA and SATA Power connectors. Just open your computer's case and take one of the spare SATA Power connectors coming from your PSU to it. Thank you - I'll give that a shot.
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Feb 23, 2020 21:50
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It worked! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! This means the world to us. We had so many old photos on there I thought were lost.
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Feb 23, 2020 22:21
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Prior to COVID, I was working from home 3 days per week. I kept my work laptop at the office and I would use my home computer (desktop PC) to connect to the VPN and remote into my laptop in the office. I have two monitors on my desktop and I like my setup. My laptop in the office began to have problems so they shipped a new laptop to my house, along with a dock, cables, a keyboard, and mouse. Unfortunately I cannot simply continue to connect via VPN to this new laptop because they have to physically be in the office for that to work (connected to LAN I believe). My setup now consists of: Work laptop connected to a dock, which is connected to one of my monitors, with its own keyboard and mouse. Home desktop PC connected to my other monitor, with its own keyboard and mouse. So I have two keyboards and two mice on my desk. I keep my personal keyboard shoved awkwardly in a corner of my desk when not in use but I find myself accessing it frequently (mainly web browsing and Spotify). I also still need our desktop accessible for certain files and applications so I can't just disconnect it and rely on my phone for web browsing and Spotify. I would like to take advantage of my dual screens for work, but with my current setup, the only way I can see that happening is to get a third monitor, dedicating one to my personal computer (which would still require accessing my personal computer separately). I also don't have the real estate for a third monitor. Is there a smarter way I can be doing this? I was thinking to when I was a kid in the 80s, and we had a little switch on the back of our TV to swap between the Atari and the antenna on the TV to watch shows. Does anything like that exist that would allow me to have a single keyboard to use with both computers, switching conveniently as needed?
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Jan 28, 2021 16:38
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Thank you all - I will look into these solutions.
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Jan 28, 2021 17:05
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I have several old internal hard drives that have old photos on them. At least one of them may have been retired possibly due to a virus. I think most of them had some sort of issue causing them to be retired (they are several years old). What harm, if any, would come from hooking it up to my current computer? The operating system changed between the hard drives. If I do hook one up, can I just browse through its folders to find the photos?
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Feb 25, 2021 15:59
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tuyop posted:Is this a Windows computer? Give Windows Sandbox a shot. Thank you!
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Feb 25, 2021 16:46
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I posted a while ago about hooking an old internal drive to my computer. I have several drives and I was able to connect a couple and view the files. Three of the drives look like this:  I already have this IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 Cable. When I tried hooking it up though, I realized I don't have a way to power them. I took my best guess and ordered a SATA to MOLEX adapter but there are two issues: both plugs were female(?) and the MOLEX 4 pin plug I thought would work is too thick for my drive (heh). So I am returning the adapter. What exactly do I need to order? If it's not MOLEX, how can I know which 4 pin plug will fit? Can anyone provide a link? Also, one of the drives has a jumper on that small set of pins. What does that jumper do?
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Mar 8, 2021 21:51
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Helter Skelter posted:You were on the right track, just got your genders mixed up. Thank you! Pablo Bluth posted:You used to be able to have two drives on a PATA cable. The jumpers are a hang-over from the early days when you had to pre-set which was the primary one and which one was the secondary. Eventually you didn't need to do that and the computer could auto detect the order. Thanks - I'll remove it.
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Mar 8, 2021 22:25
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Thanks. I'll try leaving the jumper on then. I ordered the adapter too.
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Mar 9, 2021 00:31
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Rolo posted:Man I remember having to do this. The official nomenclature was “master” and “slave” drives, which was weird as hell. The IT department at my work just got rid of those terms. I think we're using Parent and Child now. We're also getting rid of Blacklist and Whitelist.
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Mar 9, 2021 17:44
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I'm back with more hard drive questions. After ordering the right adapter (thank you Helter Skelter!) I was able to access two of my three old hard drives. One HD didn't work, and I discovered one of the pins on the IDE connector is broken. A little nub is poking out but I have zero soldering skills, and I have very shaky hands. In theory, could I pull an old pin out of one of the other drives, and kind of jam it in next to the broken one so it makes contact? Would that be enough to at least access it short term to grab any files I want? 
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Mar 11, 2021 15:37
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Space Gopher posted:Are you sure it's actually broken off? It looks like it's just pushed in from somebody trying to push a keyed cable in way too hard. I happened to have some tiny pliers so I just tried. The pin indeed pulled back out but it was sitting crooked. I touched it one more time and it fell right into the pin hole and into the drive 
me your dad fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Mar 11, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 16:50
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Gromit posted:That's definitely the result of someone (presumably a friend of yours? Thank you. The drive is pretty old and I have no idea how it got damaged. It was no doubt done by me. Maybe I'll try soldering.
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Mar 12, 2021 03:56
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) trying to push a keyed cable in the wrong way around. There should be a few tiny screws attaching the PCB to the hard drive itself, and taking it off will let you get that pin back out. You could solder it back in I suppose if you want to do a quick and dirty fix to get it reading again, but you wouldn't want to rely on it.
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I have an older Dell XPS 8300 desktop PC and the original graphics card seems to have crapped out on me and my monitor wasn't getting a signal. I tried re-seating the graphics card, I tried two cables, and two monitors. I couldn't get a display outputted to the monitor until I removed the graphics card and plugged the monitor cable directly into the back of my PC. Is this sufficient for general use, including web browsing and Office apps? It's never been a gaming PC and I don't use it for games. (I am posting this from my work computer).
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May 5, 2021 15:23
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:22 |
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Thank you!
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May 5, 2021 17:45
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