The important difference between IDE and SATA external drives is not so much
the drives as the enclosures. IDE enclosures connect to the computer with
USB or firewire cables. SATA enclosures connect via a SATA cable to an
eSATA port or by USB or firewire cables (a variety of connectors on the back
of the enclosure). The connection speed of USB and firewire is far slower
than by eSATA. Further, you can boot with an eSATA connected drive just the
same as with any internal SATA drive.
If you have an eSATA port on your computer I strongly recommend a SATA
drive, SATA enclosure, and appropriate cable. The performance is far better
than with USB or fireware.
"Spuggy88" <Spuggy88@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:71392091-DF03-4900-B570-C279353F8749@xxxxxx
Quote:
>
>
> "davidjchuang" wrote:
> Quote:
>>
>> Spuggy88;663954 Wrote: Quote:
>> > I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I
>> > lost
>> > access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and
>> > they
>> > told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when
>> > i
>> > double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long
>> > time
>> > (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then
>> > an
>> > error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This
>> > happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further
>> > message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected
>> > properly,
>> > and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not
>> > read
>> > only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here?
>> > I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it.
>> > In
>> > Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB.
>> >
>> > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>> > Spug
>>
>> I have trouble reading your post. You did say "hard drive", but which
>> one? There is the OS C: drive, and there is the local D: drive. OR, you
>> actually mean CD/DVD E: drives ,since you mentioned someting about "read
>> only" ?
>>
>>
>> --
>> davidjchuang >
>
> I mean the D: drive, NOT the DVD drive or the drive holding my operating
> system. Sorry for confusion.
> After talking to acer support, i managed to get the D: drive back, but it
> needs to be formatted before i can use it. Again, the support guy told me
> it
> can't be done in Windows, but i need to download fdisk or partition magic.
> any suggestions on which one?
>
> and also, what is the difference between IDE and SATA external drives?
>
> Thanks