adding hard drive catch 22

[Lex]

I was going to put a second 500 gb drive in my new little HP Vista 64 bit machine, well I got the drive physically inserted, however, when trying to get power to it, I ran into a problem. My drive is SATA, and there are no additional SATA power connections. Is there such a thing as standard power connector to SATA power connector adapter?

My other choice is adding a more powerful power supply, which I may have to do anyway to have enough power for the drive. I question if the 300 watt power supply has enough juice to handle two hard drives. (Phenom 9550 chip with 2.2 gh quad core design, 500 gb HD, CD, that's it other than 6 gig ram, Anyone?

I'm bummed, I really wanted a second HD, but no of no way to power one. If I go standard drive, then it's IDE, maybe it has IDE support, I'd have to see, but I know I have spare SATA inputs.

[littlesaint]

SATA power adapters exist and work fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...dapter&x=0&y=0

300W should be OK, but just like audio power, you can never have too much. :T

[Kevin P]

Does the machine already have 2 SATA drives? Usually power supplies with SATA connectors have at least 2 already. If not, Littlesaint is right, Molex-SATA adapters are available, you can get them online or at the local 'puter shop or Best Buy.

The motherboard has an open SATA connector for your drive, right? Make sure it does. As you probably already know, there's 2 connectors on the drive, one for data and one for power.

[Lex]

That's exactly what I need, not sure if Best Buy has it or not, but I can check them. If not, I'll order it.

Well, there are 4 SATA connections on mobo, I already connected a cable to it when I started connecting the drive, but then realized, I had no SATA compatible power connector. I got plenty of old style bundled up, quite a quandry with a 500 gig SATA drive in my hand.

Thanks guys! I'd like to just use the 300 watt supply, it's so quite, and that's sort of nice compared to my jet engine I am used to on the old dual PC with dual fans and power supply running...

Doug

[Hdale85]

Circuit city used to have them haha. Best-buy might if they don't though check a radio shack possibly something like Staples might as well. Radioshack is kind of hit or miss cause some of them carry them some don't.

[Lex]

I was able to run down to the local Electronics supply store today after a quick phone call to verify they had them. :-) So, it took me all of 5 minutes to install the drive after I got home, it's formatting now.

So, that worked out great, thanks for letting me know that the elusive adapter did exist.

Oh and Kevin, the original comment about two Sata connectors, yes, it did have two, and one is used by Lightscribe DVD drive and the other the hard drive. So, that's one two strikes and I was out. Being a basic power supply, you can't have everything I guess. But the 4.00 adapter tax and all, worked like a champ. :T

Doug