Hi all,
i'm trying to attach my 2.5" P-ATA hdd (from my dell) into my house pc
(3.5" P-ATA). I bought one of those adapters from 2.5" to 3.5" (look
here to get an idea
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2...ttatoreuj6.png) but something
strange happens. When turning on the pc the 2.5hdd is not correctly
recognized. Actually, sometimes the BIOS (award bios with gigabyte 848P
motherboard) sees it as a 16MB hdd, some other times it doesn't see it
at all. I tried to boot windows XP from the pc's hdd, and then try to
analize the hdd with some tool and they say the 2.5 hdd is more than 500
thousand GB :|
The hdd i'm talking about is a Fujitsu MHV2040AH 40 GB, with ATA
password enabled. I thought the problem could be because of the ATA
password, so I tried with an unlocked 2.5" hdd (a Hitachi DX23BA-10, 10
GB) and i do get the same error. So I tried on a older computer, and I
get the same strange happenings?

Anyone of you already got the 500 thousand GB odd capacity? Do you know
why that happens? My opinion, after my trials, is that the problem is in
the 2.5"->3.5" adapter. Any guess?

Thank you for your help
Danilo

dan wrote:
> Hi all,
> i'm trying to attach my 2.5" P-ATA hdd (from my dell) into my house pc
> (3.5" P-ATA). I bought one of those adapters from 2.5" to 3.5" (look
> here to get an idea
> http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2...ttatoreuj6.png) but something
> strange happens. When turning on the pc the 2.5hdd is not correctly
> recognized. Actually, sometimes the BIOS (award bios with gigabyte 848P
> motherboard) sees it as a 16MB hdd, some other times it doesn't see it
> at all. I tried to boot windows XP from the pc's hdd, and then try to
> analize the hdd with some tool and they say the 2.5 hdd is more than 500
> thousand GB :|
> The hdd i'm talking about is a Fujitsu MHV2040AH 40 GB, with ATA
> password enabled. I thought the problem could be because of the ATA
> password, so I tried with an unlocked 2.5" hdd (a Hitachi DX23BA-10, 10
> GB) and i do get the same error. So I tried on a older computer, and I
> get the same strange happenings?
>
> Anyone of you already got the 500 thousand GB odd capacity? Do you know
> why that happens? My opinion, after my trials, is that the problem is in
> the 2.5"->3.5" adapter. Any guess?

I think you're right. I'd try a different brand adapter.


>
> Thank you for your help
> Danilo

Try an external USB adapter. The one I like best is this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330072511273

The internal IDE adapter should work, and these things are passive so
it's almost hard for them to be defective, but not impossible.


dan wrote:
> Hi all,
> i'm trying to attach my 2.5" P-ATA hdd (from my dell) into my house pc
> (3.5" P-ATA). I bought one of those adapters from 2.5" to 3.5" (look
> here to get an idea
> http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2...ttatoreuj6.png) but something
> strange happens. When turning on the pc the 2.5hdd is not correctly
> recognized. Actually, sometimes the BIOS (award bios with gigabyte 848P
> motherboard) sees it as a 16MB hdd, some other times it doesn't see it
> at all. I tried to boot windows XP from the pc's hdd, and then try to
> analize the hdd with some tool and they say the 2.5 hdd is more than 500
> thousand GB :|
> The hdd i'm talking about is a Fujitsu MHV2040AH 40 GB, with ATA
> password enabled. I thought the problem could be because of the ATA
> password, so I tried with an unlocked 2.5" hdd (a Hitachi DX23BA-10, 10
> GB) and i do get the same error. So I tried on a older computer, and I
> get the same strange happenings?
>
> Anyone of you already got the 500 thousand GB odd capacity? Do you know
> why that happens? My opinion, after my trials, is that the problem is in
> the 2.5"->3.5" adapter. Any guess?
>
> Thank you for your help
> Danilo

dan <hi@five.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
> i'm trying to attach my 2.5" P-ATA hdd (from my dell) into my house pc
> (3.5" P-ATA). I bought one of those adapters from 2.5" to 3.5" (look
> here to get an idea
> http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2...ttatoreuj6.png) but
> something strange happens. When turning on the pc the 2.5hdd is not
> correctly recognized. Actually, sometimes the BIOS (award bios with
> gigabyte 848P motherboard) sees it as a 16MB hdd, some other times it
> doesn't see it at all. I tried to boot windows XP from the pc's hdd,
> and then try to analize the hdd with some tool and they say the 2.5
> hdd is more than 500 thousand GB :|

> The hdd i'm talking about is a Fujitsu MHV2040AH 40 GB, with ATA
> password enabled. I thought the problem could be because of the ATA
> password, so I tried with an unlocked 2.5" hdd (a Hitachi DX23BA-10,
> 10 GB) and i do get the same error. So I tried on a older computer,
> and I get the same strange happenings?

You sure you are putting the 2.5" connector onto the correct pins
on the drives ? Quite a few laptop drives have the drive jumper
pins in a line with the pins the ribbon cable goes onto with no
obvious distinction between the jumper pins and the cable pins.

If its not that, what have you done with the jumper on the laptop
drive, and what drive type entry do you have in the bios ? The
drive type entry should be AUTO and you can get into one hell
of a mess if you use explicit CHS values etc.

> Anyone of you already got the 500 thousand GB odd capacity? Do you know why that happens?

The bios should be asking the drive how big it is. If there is a problem
with getting that data back from the drive, it can get some bizaree results.

> My opinion, after my trials, is that the problem is in the 2.5"->3.5" adapter. Any guess?

Yes, thats quite possible. It may well have a dry joint etc if you are using it properly.

Rod Speed wrote:
> dan <hi@five.net> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> i'm trying to attach my 2.5" P-ATA hdd (from my dell) into my house pc
>> (3.5" P-ATA). I bought one of those adapters from 2.5" to 3.5" (look
>> here to get an idea
>> http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2...ttatoreuj6.png) but
>> something strange happens. When turning on the pc the 2.5hdd is not
>> correctly recognized. Actually, sometimes the BIOS (award bios with
>> gigabyte 848P motherboard) sees it as a 16MB hdd, some other times it
>> doesn't see it at all.
[...]

> You sure you are putting the 2.5" connector onto the correct pins
> on the drives ? Quite a few laptop drives have the drive jumper
> pins in a line with the pins the ribbon cable goes onto with no
> obvious distinction between the jumper pins and the cable pins.

On my Fujitsu drive, the jumper pins are bit aside, so i'm not putting
the connector wrongly. At least, not more on the left or on the right of
where it should go. As it doesn't have a guide in the middle (like
normal ATA connectors) i thought i was inserting the hdd upside down.
Somewhere i read it was safe to put it wrongly, that it won't fry
everything up. So i tried, but the hdd makes a strange noise... so i
pulled it off. Anyway, that didn't affect wrongly the hdd as it still
works on the laptop.

>
> If its not that, what have you done with the jumper on the laptop
> drive, and what drive type entry do you have in the bios ? The
> drive type entry should be AUTO and you can get into one hell
> of a mess if you use explicit CHS values etc.

According to the jumper on the laptop drive, i didn't put any which
(talking about MHV2040AH) means that it is set in Master Mode. In the
bios, first i tried AUTO and one time it recognised the hdd being of
16MB, other times it didn't see it at all. I tried the CHS mess, it
didn't work at all :) I could try LBA but then i can't insert any
Cylinder, Heads and Sectors.

>> Anyone of you already got the 500 thousand GB odd capacity? Do you know why that happens?
>
> The bios should be asking the drive how big it is. If there is a problem
> with getting that data back from the drive, it can get some bizaree results.
>
>> My opinion, after my trials, is that the problem is in the 2.5"->3.5" adapter. Any guess?
>
> Yes, thats quite possible. It may well have a dry joint etc if you are using it properly.
>
>

I'll keep trying. Later on i'll try setting LBA in BIOS, then i'll check
pin by pin the connector with my tester.

Barry Watzman wrote:
> Try an external USB adapter. The one I like best is this one:
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330072511273
>
> The internal IDE adapter should work, and these things are passive so
> it's almost hard for them to be defective, but not impossible.
>

Thanks for the suggestion, but i need to attach it via IDE, not through
USB because then i need to have low-level access to the drive. Thanks
anyway ;)

>
> dan wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> i'm trying to attach my 2.5" P-ATA hdd (from my dell) into my house pc
>> (3.5" P-ATA). I bought one of those adapters from 2.5" to 3.5" (look
>> here to get an idea
>> http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2...ttatoreuj6.png) but
>> something strange happens. When turning on the pc the 2.5hdd is not
>> correctly recognized.
[...]
>> Thank you for your help
>> Danilo

dan wrote:
> Barry Watzman wrote:
>> Try an external USB adapter. The one I like best is this one:
>>
>> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330072511273
>>
>> The internal IDE adapter should work, and these things are passive so
>> it's almost hard for them to be defective, but not impossible.
>>
>
> Thanks for the suggestion, but i need to attach it via IDE, not
> through USB because then i need to have low-level access to the
> drive. Thanks anyway ;)

A laptop's BIOS recognizes HDs differently than a desktop's BIOS, ergo you
see FAT and CHS errors.

Use a USB adapter as Barry suggested, it doesn't preclude low level access
to the drive.

Which begs the question, why do you need low-level access?
--
James

Visit the Thinkpad Forums
http://forum.thinkpads.com

JHEM wrote:
> dan wrote:
[...]
>
> A laptop's BIOS recognizes HDs differently than a desktop's BIOS, ergo you
> see FAT and CHS errors.
>

I didn't know that. Actually, wherever they talked about attaching
mobile hdds to a PC they never talked about this difference. I've one
question: if the hdd is standard P-ATA, the file system on it is a
standard NTFS, and if laptop's BIOS recognises HDs differently than a
desktop's BIOS then... are there two different standard ways to access
hdd or one of the two (laptop vs desktop) is not using a standard?!?

> Use a USB adapter as Barry suggested, it doesn't preclude low level access
> to the drive.
>
> Which begs the question, why do you need low-level access?

I need low level because of my curiosity :) As I can see, laptop's HDDs
are something little bit strange, and i want to understand how they work
and how the onboard password works. I've seen around many programs
which access harddrives even when these are not recognised by BIOS or
the IDE channel is not activated (talking about windows). So i
recognised i had a wrong opinion about how these low level mechanisms
work. So... better understanding deeply, isn't it? ;)