Laptop Hard Drive In PC?

[Jonj1611]

Hi,

I have a 100GB 2.5" SATA hard drive hanging around that came from my laptop.

Is it possible to connect this directly to the PC? I mean direct to the motherboard, with the power going through a Molex to SATA adapter?

I have seen some people say yes and others say no, don't really want to kill the drive if possible

Regards

[Hawker1986]

Yes, not a problem, ive got a laptop drive connected to my media centre. its all good.

Hawker

[Jonj1611]

Ok, cool, reason I asked is because I read that the molex is a 12V and the hard drive sata is a 5V. Obviously didn't want to blow anything

Regards

[Pob255]

molex contains 5v (red wire) and 12v (yellow wire) the issue can be 3.3volt (orange wire)
Some low power hard drives use 3.3v, if you use a standard sata power connector from a psu it's not an issue, molex to sata power adaptors lack the 3.3 volt.

It will still not be a problem for the vast majority of drives as they don't use the 3.3 volt.

[Jonj1611]

Ah right, my drive says 5v 1.1A on it, so I assume its ok for use with a Molex to Sata adapter?

Thanks

[Biscuit]

i have 2 x laptop drives (RAID 0) in my main PC and 1 in my HTPC and they work fine. The connectors are identical and the power usage is likely to be no different (see pobs post). Only complication is mounting bracket, and thats not all that complicated really

Ah right, my drive says 5v 1.1A on it, so I assume its ok for use with a Molex to Sata adapter?

Thanks

Yep, no problemo

[Jonj1611]

Ideal, well that solves a problem for the short term anyway. Mounting should be ok, my case has one of those adapter things in it for 2.5" drives.

Its only for testing purposes until I get a proper drive in it, building myself a NAS

Thanks