i had a Gateway notebook with an ATA IDE hard drive....im looking at a new HP Pavilion notebook with an SATA hard drive....Can i swap my old HD with the new HD?
jtara
5:05 pm on Jan 23, 2007 (gmt 0)
They are not interchangable. The only thing they have in common is the general nature of their command structure. ATA drives uses a parallel interface. SATA drives use a serial interface. They don't use the same connectors, which aren't even remotely similar.
mole
5:41 pm on Jan 23, 2007 (gmt 0)
yes, and as well as that, even if the drive from your old computer was compatible with the new one, it would still be a bad idea for various reasons, like: * most of the device drivers wouldn't work with the new hardware, so you'd have a bit of an adventure sorting all that out. * you'd be installing a disk with an old version of the operating system along with all the stuff you've accumulated on it - now really would be a good time to start again with a clean OS. * the old drive will most probably be slower and of a smaller capacity than a new one.
The list goes on - don't do it! (you can't anyway).
wheel
8:26 pm on Jan 28, 2007 (gmt 0)
And to make matters worse, older versions of windows xp didn't come with a sata driver. So when you go to install windows on the drive you first need a floppy disk with your sata driver on it before you can even install windows.
