Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[ralphie43]

I’m converting my previous ST3500630AS to an external.  It came out of my computer after a month or so, it was a warranty exchange.  I just installed a 1TB HD so I bought an ext case for my ST3500, this was to replace my WD My Book that failed. The 250GB HD out of that didn’t quit just the circuit board fried.  On the ST3500 I have Win 7 as well as all old programs and files.  It is a duplicate of the new 1Tb except the files are now out of date. 

Also the sticker shows a picture of jumper locations as follows.   

Limited to 1 .5Gbs operation  * * * *    jumper is on last 2 pins to the right

3Gbs operation                       * * * *

Yet I have only the one row of pins?  I could only move the jumper to the left, noting below as the sticker shows.  Do I need to change anything to make it work properly?  Can I just leave the Old (4 months) Win 7 on the HD to use as a backup of my OS, then just backup the files as they change or will I need to redo a complete backup of my new 1TB drive?  The Drive should show Win 7 etc as a “C” Drive and a “D” partition as well.  My 1TB is shows a C and D partition currently, will this cause a problem or will I be able to change it after I plug it in.  The Ext has 3GBPS W/ e SATA as well as USB.  I will be using eSATA.  I do want to keep the files as I need some since My WD backup didn’t have everything.

[Cantbecanit]

I've only had a quick read cos I'm in a rush, but this is what you need to do.....

Put the drive in the ext without any jumper on it, this will give you 3gbps.

If you want to boot from it, your bios must be set to 1st boot device usb,eSata,ext if it supports that, other than that it will be readable as a slave.

[ralphie43]

I will remove the jumper as suggested. Doing that will the HD work ok since Win 7 OSP is installed on that old HD, no problem? 

I haven't hooked up the Ext HD yet but I did install the eSATA adapter and plugged it into the MB and now I see the System Reserved “E” down from 99.9MB to 61.8MB

I would guess because I plugged in the eSATA adapter for the Ext HD into the MB SATA 4.  Should it have been plugged in to SATA 3 right next to the main HD?

To give all information I have, Looking at the Bios I see,   

Sata 1  DVD

Sata 2  1TB HD

Sata 3 & 4   none

In the Boot section;

1. 1st Master    250 WD HD  (that will be removed when I get it copied and ready to install the Segate Ext.)

2  Sata 2 is the 1 TB HD

The CD Rom shows as SATA 1

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[Cantbecanit]

It should be ok, normally USB ext aren't governed by the MB chipset in that respect, if it fails to show then place the jumper back on, using eSata is flakey tbh, I still get drives not appearing and I've loaded all the drivers and hacked the reg as well, it either works or it doesn't, looking at your figures you need to select # 2 to boot from it, but beware as if you aren't booting to the same PC as before the drivers will be wrong and it won't boot at all, you'll just get a blue screen and windows shutdown to protect message, using the sata ports to link the eSata drive doesn't depend on any particular port, any spare should work, and when it does work it's worth it, a file simply whizzes across, if you want to use eSata properly you will need to set your bios to AHCi, but see if you can get it running ok in IDE mode first.

[ralphie43]

I did go back into the BIOS and to check and the option to change it to ACHI is there, all you have to do is look in the right place, so tha will not be aproblem after I change the registry.

I plan to make the change tomorrow, what do I do to get back to square one and get it up and running if all else fails?

[AlanM]

ralphie43,

Just to add to what Cantbecanit has been saying, I have read through the thread here and I don't understand why the jumper is necessary?

[Cantbecanit]

Ralph, just make a note of anything you change, if possible there might be an option in there to save the bios, then you simply have to restore it one click.

[ralphie43 · Accepted solution]

Now I'm finally ready to do this, change the BIOS to ACHi.  I have run the 500GB that I installed in the ext case and I see the old Win 7 still on it and it has 2 partitions as it did when I took it out so IDE wise it is Ok.  I don't see any of my old files as I thought I left them on there.  I see the 2nd partition (was "D")  that would have had them but it is now all free, so maybe I did clear them when I backed up the HD before I removed it. 

What I need to know is how do I Format and clean the drive to use as just an ext backup. Do I go into control Panel, Create Format Hard disks Partitions and do it from there? 

Should I do the reformat after I change it to ACHi or should I do this before the change?