Want to upgrade HDD to older computer SCSI to IDE/ATA?? (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Nyman]

Not sure if this is worth doing, but if anyone can offer some guidance I would appreciate!

I was wondering if it's possible to take an older computer with two SCSI hardrives (3GB & 9.18GB Ultra2 LVD SCSI)and swap them out to install a 40GB IDE/ATA harddrive? Can
this plug into the motherboard if I have a slot open?
There's a controller card wired to the two old harddrives, but found 3 female 50pins plugs on it. The 40GB HDD has 40pins. Can I hook the 40GB HDD to the older computer? Would I need a different controller card or will plugging it into the motherboard work?

Thank you to anyone that can offer any help.

 

[Paul McElligott]

You would need an IDE/ATA controller card. These are nice and cheap (Around $15-$25).

 

[Paul_Nyman]

Paul,

So I will only need a IDE/ATA card plugged into the motherboard, and then plug the bigger HDD into the new card?

 

[Paul McElligott]

Pretty much, other than setting the jumpers on drive to be a master.

You might need to install drivers for the card, too.

 

[Christian Behrens]

Also, you might want to check whether your motherboard offers IDE connectors, in that case you wouldn't need anything extra, just connect the drives directly to the mobo.

-Christian

 

[Ken Chan]

Pretty much every motherboard in the last, say, 10 years has IDE connectors. They look like this (the black and blue on the bottom).

However, older computers cannot handle today's large drives. There are many different large disk limits, which are dependent on the hardware and/or OS. If you try to use your 40GB drive, and you don't see 40GB, the solution may involve getting a new IDE/ATA card.

(And when a drive is advertised as 40GB, it's 40 decimal gigabytes = 40 billion bytes, which is actually just 37.25 binary GB. If you see numbers close to either, that's OK. But 33 would be wrong; 8 would obviously be wrong.)

If you remove the SCSI drives, and nothing else is connected to the SCSI card, you can remove the card too. Of course, this would be after transferring data from the old SCSI drives.

 

[Paul_Nyman]

Something came up, wasn't able to get to this till this morning. Now I cannot get any power into the CPU? What would cause this?? I checked to see if I had a loose connection from the internal power box to the mother board. Nothing is loose and I changed nothing else. I removed the two old HDD (no data needed from either drive) installed the newer drive to the open IDE2 slot (cd-rom on IDE1 still)plugged the power cable into surge power strip. Turned on and NOTHING happens. No fan, no panel lights, zilch!

I'm thinking about reinstall the old drives in and get back to square one, but if anyone can chip in with an idea before I go that route I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks so far if all the help and suggestions!

 

[Ken Chan]

Did you turn on the switch on the power supply itself? The one on the back near the power cord?

 

[Paul_Nyman]

Ken,

Yes I did turn the rear switch. I went back and reinstalled the old drives put the controller card in and tried powering on and still NOTHING happens?

I can't figure out what caused this doesn't make sense with what I worked on. Would the power supply just crap out at the exact time I powered off to do the upgrade?

Should I just see what the Best Buy Geek Squad estimates the problem is and pursue it on my own at home?

 

[Ken Chan]

It's possible something shorted out. If you can borrow some parts, you can swap things out to see where the problem is.

You need minimum power to get the fans to start:
- Power cord plugged into live outlet
- Cord plugged into power supply
- Power supply switched on
- Power supply plugged into motherboard (both main 20/24-pin and 12V?)
- Live CPU
- CPU fan connected is required on some motherboards
- Soft power switch on the computer hooked up to motherboard

I think that's it....

 

[Rommel_L]

Paul_N,

What OS are you using on your PC? In which HD did you load it?

The PSU are probably shutting down because it can't handle the extra load.

I suggest to start with the minumum number of components connected to the psu - mobo, ram , hdd (with the OS), videocard (built-in or not) and see if POSTs and boot and go from there.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

You could also have zapped the motherboard with static electricity when you were moving and removing cards. A dead motherboard means that the power will remain off since the powersupply requires a healthy motherboard connected to it before it will start.

 

[Paul_Nyman]

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions and help. Sorry I couldn't post till this morning.

It took a few days for me to get back to examining everything. I found after putting the older HDD back that the wire connections on the motherboard (pwr sw, reset, speaker,pwr) were mixed up totally. Either I was up to late when I did the upgrade to the new HDD and a few wires pulled out as I was plugging in ribbon cables, power cord, but I assumed wrong when I quickly plugged them back in. The only wire left unplugged is Turbo LED. which I have no idea were that goes. The markings on the motherboard don't say Turbo LED. Any help out with what it could be to connect that?

 

[Ken Chan]

Turbo is only for really old computers. In fact, it's actually backwards: turbo is normal, and not-turbo is "slowed down so games don't run too fast".

In the old days, that meant cutting the speed in half, or perhaps to one tenth. Nowadays, it would require cutting the speed to one thousandth.

If you actually have and hooked up a turbo switch on the motherboard, I would disconnect it; no need to use Turbo ever. Then the LED doesn't matter. If you don't have a turbo switch hooked up, then the LED definitely doesn't matter.

 

[Paul_Nyman]

Ken,

I'd never heard of Turbo, turns out it isn't needed at all. Oh well!

A friend came by and looked at everything and it looks like in order for the 40GB HDD to work on this PC the BIOS need an upgrade! The older BIOS won't work with a 40GB HDD. I located the company that made the older BIOS and spoke to someone at Award/eSupport and it runs $59.97 for the BIOS disc and 1 year service warranty. Anyone think differently let me know.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Often the company that makes the motherboard makes bios upgrades available on their site for free. Worth checking first. The motherboard should have enough info printed on it to make it possible to track down the manufacturer and model if you don't know it.

 

[Christian Behrens]

Before spending $60 for a new BIOS I would probably invest in a newer motherboard. I bought my current nForce2-based mobo for around that money used on Craigslist, and it works like a charm.

In your situation, though, it might mean having to upgrade the CPU, memory, PSU, but personally I would not spend that money for an old system.

But as mentioned, check the manufacturer's website for BIOS updates for your board first.

-Christian

 

[Ken Chan]

As mentioned way upthread, you can get an IDE/ATA card for about $15.

 

[Paul_Nyman]

I decide to put the old Primary HDD back in and booted up to run this file: CTBIOS.EXE which gave me all this info now.

BIOS-Info, c't/Andreas Stiller, 10/97

Computer ID : FC, Type : AT
BIOS Date : 07/01/99
Award BIOS found : Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
Award ID-String : 07/01/1999-i440BX-8671-2A69KG0DC-00
Board/BIOS-Version : Intel 440BX/ZX AGPSet BIOS for 6BXC V.2.9
OEM : GIGA-BYTE
URL : http://www.gigabyte.com.tw
Chipset : i440BX-8671 //Intel

My question now is what BIOS for sure is needed?

Door #1 or Door #2?

1. Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG ??

2. Intel 440BX/ZX AGPSet BIOS for 6BXC V.2.9 ??

 

[Dennis*G]

get your bios here

http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard...OS_GA-6BXC.htm

If that does not work for you, you can get a used newer computer (MB, CPU, ram and a PSU) for maybe $150 easy.

Here is a link to the manual for the board. good to have that handy

http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard...al_GA-6BXC.htm

You board should have printed on it what revision it is 1001, 1901 or 2001