S-ATA has always being ringing on my head when I think about HDD. But never did I really know the difference until I've made the wrong purchase today. S-ATA HDD and external casings costs a bit more compared to IDE, but since it's a "newer technology" I don't mind paying extra.


Found this interesting gadget called E03 by Stysen selling in the PC Fair. It's a bit expensive as compared with the other casings, but I buy their idea of putting a fan to cool down the system. Paid RM96 for that. As for HDD, I've always wanted to get an additional 3.5" HDD considering the price is dropping. Thanks to Richx, I decided to get a WD2500KS for RM272. ( 250GB, 16MB buffer, SATA II, 7200rpm)

That's until technology becomes a nightmare to me. Get back home, open my CPU, strip off my harddisk. F@#$!!! Why are the pins different??? Flip through some manuals only to find out that the seller sold me a IDE HDD last time when I bought my computer a year ago. That's to save his costs through ignorance and negligence of his customers. DaMN!

Boh huat, I'll have to use my newly bought HDD as an external instead of a replacement. But now comes another problem. Don't assume HDD comes formatted. When I've switch on the power, the hardware can be detected by my OS, but it doesn't show up on My Computer. Called up a few favours until finally managed to get help from my uni senior - the great Mr S.

Luckily he has all the knowledge and equipments ready at his house. Drove through the heavy rain to find a place I've never been before. Thanks to the tip given by mom, I managed to find the place quite easily. What surprises me is when I step into his room. I've always felt that I spent a lot on gadgets, but this is the first time I see a bedroon with one 19" LCD connected to a Pentium D CPU while the other 19" connected to an IBM laptop, wireless keyboard and mouses, 1 external HDD and another dedicated external HDD, 1 set of 2.1 speakers while another 5.1 hiding under the bed. All these things are cool with in an air-conditioned room.

Surprise you enough? That's a boy's world. Thanks to him, managed to format the HDD, and get it working. Now using it to backup all my Pictures first before moving forward to backup my movies.

Labels: Tech