Windows 7 PINS ON MY TWO HDDs

patcooke

Microsoft MVP

Microsoft MVP

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May 16, 2010

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5,688

• Apr 27, 2012

• #2

Depending on whether they are sata or ide on an ide drive the two pairs at the end are for jumpers to select master/slave configurations.

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2012

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R

Rus

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Jan 23, 2010

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165

• Apr 27, 2012

• Thread Author
• #3

patcooke said:

Depending on whether they are sata or ide on an ide drive the two pairs at the end are for jumpers to select master/slave configurations.

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OK. Thanks. Then they are irrelevant since I have a laptop. Appreciate the quick response.

 

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Digerati

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Oct 25, 2009

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• Apr 28, 2012

• #4

We don't have enough information. We need to know if it is an EIDE (PATA) or SATA drive. 4 pins on an EIDE drive could very well be for the power connection. 7 and 15 suggests SATA, however, and they don't use Master/Slave settings. Therefore, I suspect the 4 pins you are referring to are for Legacy support - to force the drives to use older SATA protocols on some older motherboards. Some SATA drives have two more pins in that location for standby power and some include yet another pair for spread spectrum clocking - two features most users don't ever need.

 

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