ITE/SATA External HDD

Bob,

Let others step in to correct me but I haven't found a way to do this other than to open up the enclosure. I tried to use Apple System Profiler to investigate my LaCie drive and it just provides information about the connection to the computer, not the drive itself. I even tried looking up my drive on LaCie's website and the specifications don't mention what is actually inside the box, either in terms of brand of drive or type of connectors.

Brian

Hi! Unless it's very new there's about a 90% chance or better that it's an ide drive. I've only recently began seeing cases for sata drives. Most of the cases that use sata drives also have an eSata port externally. Tom

Message was edited by: Thomas Bryant

In browsing the web I did see a few Firewire plus USB enclosures that can take IDE or SATA drives. There's a converter that attaches to a SATA to then feed into an IDE connector. Conceivably you could have one of those, though I don't know how to determine that without taking it apart. My impression is these are relatively new so you may have to guess based upon the age of your enclosure. I have seen converters for around $10, though I don't know if one would fit inside an enclosure not designed to accommodate one.

Brian

Bob,
The straightforward answer is to open the enclosure and look at the data connection. SATA has a much smaller 7-pin cable. HTH.

I have a LaCie external with an unknown drive. In Tiger's Disk Utility I selected the drive (not the volumes) and clicked the "i" (information) button. Included in the information was "Media Name: WDC WD25 00JB-00REA0 Media" I then did a web search for "WDC WD25 00JB-00" and got a single hit which led me to a site that told me this is a Western Digital Caviar IDE 250 GB 8MBbuffer 7500rpm drive, Mfg. Part: WD2500JB. This is not telling me what all the connectors are as such, just that I do at least have an IDE connector in the box.

Limnos, are ya gonna mark this one 'answered'?