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Old 03-04-2012, 08:01 AM   #1
wilderness
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Ide to Sata DVD

For some reason, my computer eats up internal DVD burners.
The computer a HP with XP and IDE.

Been buying used burners at $20 a shot.
I'm not burning an excessive amount of DVD's (maybe 3-4 a week), however I generally at least load up one DVD a day to grab a file.

The old IDE DVD burners only offered the DL at 2.4x. The 8.5x discs hit the market in 2010, however may still be used for 2.4 despite their price.
The new Sata's burn DL's at 8.5x.

I bought a SATA for $26 to-the-door (cost me $20 in gas to make the roundtrip to the store).

The problem now (and question) is that I need a controller card (PCI) (don't like the idea of those adapters for internal and long term use.
There are a variety of controller cards (varying prices with the higher prices offering RAID options, which I'll certainly (bad word for a computer user) never use) , some even specify different Stat-pin-counts.
Aren't the pin counts standard?

1) Controller card
2) sata cable and power supply (IDE) adapter.

Anybody have a clue?
The DVD docs and the supplement that I downloaded don't offer the pin counts and the damned things are quite small to count.
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Old 03-04-2012, 09:51 AM   #2
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I can appreciate the confusion. Terminology and acronyms help to abrieviate things for the knowledgable geek but if you're not over the hump then it gets confusing quickly.

It sounds like your older PC is a vintage one from when IDE predominated the market. IDE as a acronym is Integrated Drive Electronics. There's a history there as to why that was important at one time, however, what you need to know is IDE means parallel and uses those flat ribbon cables. Most likely you have two: the first connects to the hard drive and the second goes to the DVD.

Next, there is SATA. Bottom line, the "S" means serial. Which is not parallel. SATA uses a different connector since it is serial. If you look inside most, if not all, computers of recent vintage, they are using SATA and you should see cables that are smaller and usually red or orange connecting the hard drives to the controller. The controller is usually just another set of chips located on the mother board (MB), though, early on before all of this stuff got integrated onto the MB there were separate boards for the PCI bus.

For you to use the newer SATA devices, you need to get one of those SATA controllers for the PCI bus in the HP.

There are a couple of different flavors of PCI busses and the boards that plug into them. The newer one is PCIe while the older is just plain old PCI. Very likely your HP has PCI. Post the model/part number and a little bit if internet searching should turn up the details of the box which will help configure the upgrade. But you should be safe assuming plain old PCI.

Of course, all of the rest of the characteristics of the upgrade need to be discussed too. These are the electrical and physical.

The physical size of the slot for the DVD drive will determine what will fit for all 3 dimensions: highth, width and depth. Not all burners are of the same exact size. Very likely the older IDE DVD drive was large and the empty space it fills is likely big enough to take anything newer, but, it is best to double check especially the length of the drive slot -- how long it is from the very front of the face of the PC to the furthest point into the case the back end of the drive protrudes. There are some drives which have a short dimension, and, to point out the obvious, a smaller drive will fit into a longer space but a drive that is longer that the space in the PC where it is suppose to go could be a show stopper.

The check of the electrical is primarily the connector for the power supply and the voltage. I believe these are all MOLEX and are 5 volts. They're typically a whitish plastic and are keyed -- one corner has an angled cut to it and will only fit into the plug coming from the PC's power supply one way. It is very, very, very likely all of the power connector are exactly the same, so, from that perspective, it is plug and chug. But, make sure before hand -- look before you leap.

Yes, I just told you how to build a watch but I think the background information and discussion should level set you and get your comfort level up in order to do the upgrade. It actually is a very straight forward upgrade.

Find whatever SATA controller which will work with the specific PCI bus the HP has in it, and, whatever fits your budget. I have in the past used a number of Adaptec products but these are more expensive.

I would expect any aftermarket DVD burner to come with a SATA cable but if not these can be had at just about any electronic supply store.

Check the maintenance level of the XP operating system. XP-SP3 has been out there long enough there should not be any problems with drivers, etc.

Follow the instructions from the SATA controller manufactor. Take caution to not generate any static electricity while working on the system unit which has been unplugged and let sit for a while.

Once the new SATA controller board is installed, boot the system. Watch the messages as XP loads and very likely you will see some messages about a new device and Windows should successfully install the needed drivers. Once that is done you should be able to see the new item in the Device Manager application.

Next, install the new DVD burner. Again, follow the directions. If there are new drivers supplied by the manufactor, it should be a part of the directions when and how to get these on the system. Again, after all of the installation work for the optical drive is done, you should be able to see it in the Device Manager application.

You should be done and ready to use the new burner.

Good luck.
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Old 03-04-2012, 10:17 AM   #3
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The pin counts should be the same. The only difference in the connectors that I can think of is that slimline (1.8") drives use a smaller connector. There are three levels of SATA (more if you count the incremental versions). With PCI you are likely to be at SATA 1 which is no big deal speed-wise for a burner.

I'm pretty sure that you know not to buy a PCI-E controller card as that will not work in a PCI slot. It also should not be any big deal to pick up a standard SATA cable and the needed Molex-to-SATA power adapter if I'm understanding your post correctly.
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Old 03-04-2012, 10:40 AM   #4
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Many thanks guys.

Will a Sata Controller card run on XP SP-2?

SP-3 makes my scanner unstable and my scanner is what my entire computer functions around.

I am using a very old scanner, however it's been a real workhorse and I've bought one new and four used of the same brand-model in the past year.
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Old 03-04-2012, 10:47 AM   #5
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The XP SP2 question is a little tougher. You should be ok if the driver works with SP2 and doesn't require SP3. Tough to know the answer to that in advance. If push came to shove I would say that you will probably be fine.
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Old 03-04-2012, 10:53 AM   #6
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It may or it may not work correctly with SP2. You might be able to figure that out ahead of time by reading the technical specifications for a particular drive on the web site. If they've done a decent job, they should have something like "needs XP-SP2" or "SP3". Or maybe even does not work with Windows XP.

Of course there's the old try it and see if it works - trial and error.

As background, here is a discussion from MicroSoft about problems with DVD. Note the different sections including the one for XP. Some of the diagnostic repair steps are what you might need to do to get it to work.
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Old 03-04-2012, 11:06 AM   #7
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All the newer SATA drives will usually have a different power connector than on the older IDE drives. They will probably come with a power adapter to convert the molex into the correct plug.

I haven't run into any standard SATA drives that are of a different size than the older IDE drives unless you get slimline, which should still just fit into the case.

Drivers shouldn't be a problem to download and install, if needed, just follow instructions if necessary. The only problem is going to be if you need to reinstall XP with the SATA DVD. It can be a BIG hassle, requiring a floppy disk and floppy drive. Depending on the motherboard, that may also cause a hassle for reinstallation of XP with SATA DVD drives. Keep an IDE on hand, it makes reinstallation relatively simple and then you can change back to SATA.

I don't see how changing to SATA will help with DVD burnout problems.....It could be a heat or power related issue. Good luck with the install.
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Old 03-04-2012, 11:16 AM   #8
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Good stuff accumulating in the thread.

For future reference, just in case you get stuck: http://support.microsoft.com/mats/cd...problems/en-us

Tell us the HP PC model/part number along with the BIOS manufactor and level. That will help bridge some of the gaps and narrow down any possible solutions, or, eliminate any possible mistakes.

Not to dissaude you but understand the upgrade to a SATA device is going to problematic since XP was pre-SATA.
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Old 03-04-2012, 11:52 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DJofSD
Not to dissaude you but understand the upgrade to a SATA device is going to problematic since XP was pre-SATA.
I'm not sure why you would think this. I am running XP SP3 on my desktop with a mix of a couple PATA hard drives and two WD 1TB SATA drives. I also have two burners, one PATA and one SATA. In order to make this work I had to buy a PCI PATA controller. (I wanted to keep all of my drives and my board only had one IDE connector, hence the need for the controller card.) Everything was working fine even with SP2.

As vegasone mentioned, installing from SATA can be a problem. It's important to note that because this is drive will be on a PCI card, the drivers won't be available before the OS loads. Access to the burner without Windows being loaded is therefore unlikely.

Last edited by headhawg; 03-04-2012 at 11:55 AM.
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Old 03-04-2012, 12:14 PM   #10
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OK, I understand your experience has been a good one. However, as the old commercial used to say, your mileage may vary.

I gave a warning not a prediction. Better to know ahead of time there are potential problems than to just blindly encourage some one with little experience.

Yes, it can be done just be prepared if it does not work right the very first time and be advised.

Again, without knowing the HP model and part number to discover the mother board specifics along with the BIOS specifics, it is going to be difficult to predict where things might go wrong.

Best of luck, time for golf.
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Old 03-04-2012, 01:20 PM   #11
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Quote:
Tell us the HP PC model/part number along with the BIOS manufactor and level.
DJ,
with the closing phrase "bios", you've me shaking in my boots
With Windoze (at least after 98), I do everything possible to avoid bios. In the old DOS days bios, config.sys and autoexec.bat were a part of breathing.

The machine is an HP Pavilion 820n.

Last year on a complete reformat of the hard drive, a Standard XP installallation, ALL the HP crap was removed and a standard XP Home with necessary drivers was installed by a pro.

Here's the system info.
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name
System Manufacturer HP Pavilion 061
System Model PP165AA-ABA a820n
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 1 GenuineIntel ~3201 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 1 GenuineIntel ~3201 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 3.10, 11/12/2004
SMBIOS Version 2.3

The specs sheet and supplemental download sheet are crap.
I had to look on the actual DVD to confirm that the voltage was NOT 3.3, rather 5v or 12 to work with the IDE voltage.

Checked the DVD syst requirements and XP was included, with no mention of SP ver.

many thanks again for everybody jumping on this thread.
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Old 03-04-2012, 01:39 PM   #12
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One last thing: DJ is right about potential problems especially regarding an older machine with, no doubt, a lot of proprietary components. I think that this is most likely a case of hit-or-miss. The biggest issues are the driver and the controller card working correctly with the HP motherboard.

I also have to agree with vegasone on the burning out of the DVD drives. Switching to SATA is not likely to help with that issue. Also I'm not sure why you are buying used drives unless it's because of the rarity of IDE burners now. I just checked with NewEgg and they have an MSI IDE burner for $22 with free shipping. Perhaps the short-ish lifespan of drives is because they are used??

You weren't specific on the type of failures, but one thing NOT to do is close the tray with your hand. Use the open/close button. The tray can become misaligned by pushing on it with your hand and could be one area that may be giving you problems.
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Old 03-04-2012, 02:02 PM   #13
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headhawg,
I'm a button guy

The drives start groaning, however before that, there are generally either read or write errors.

Looking up the system info provided that this machine may have the PCIExpress slots as well, however I could not determine the MB in the system info, and google wasn't much help (too many invalid results).

I'm going to disconnect and look at the PCI slots and maybe I can get the MB # at the same time.
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Old 03-04-2012, 02:20 PM   #14
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Try Speccy for system info. It's by the same company as CrapCl...ur...CCleaner.
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Old 03-04-2012, 02:30 PM   #15
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Feel like such a freaking dunce.

The board is PTGD1- LA.

The specs say it has two sata jacks, both of which are being used for the Hard drives, the second of which I should recall because it was added last fall.


There are two other jacks similar to sata and adjoining the stat jacks in the lower right corner of the MB, although the specs say there are only two sata jacks.
of these four jacks, all are different colors.
Anybody know what the other two are?

The specs sheet says there's one PCI Express however i didn't see it.

Specs sheet also states three PCI slots with only one open.
Of the three (two are open) and one has the dial-up modem, which could be removed.
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