SATA III/II question

H

hipsterdoofus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
Messages
157
It is my understanding that SATA III drives will run on SATA II Controllers, given that you can change the jumper setting to limit the drive to 3Gbps. Is this not the case? I have a WD drive that will not show up at all on my SATA II system. I know the drive is spinning up.
 
In most cases there is no jumper and it just works.


I have a WD drive that will not show up at all on my SATA II system. I know the drive is spinning up.
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Did it work on some other machine? Or is this new. If new there is a certainly a chance it is DOA.
 
I have a WD20EARX drive on a SATA2 port (P35 chipset) and it works without issue, without any jumpers. It might be specific to the drive, or controller but I can't see any reason it would not work.

Do you know if the drive works on another port? Or even another computer? Does the BIOS see it but not Windows?
 
Thanks for the replies. When I was buying the drive, I didn't even think about it not working. From what I've read though, for the most part SATA3 drives should work with SATA2 controllers (obviously, at the slower speed). I was just afraid I had done something wrong. I'm running an ASUS P5N-E SLI.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear it should work. Since I originally posted, I took it to a friends house and I believe both of his machines have SATA3 ports and neither of his machines saw it. The drive powers up. I can hear the heads clicking a little bit nothing too serious sounding. I guess it is DOA.
 
It sure what crystal info is but when 3 different machines can't see it, it seems to be pretty well decided. Odd though since it powers up okay
 
You didn't say if the BIOS saw it. What about the drive manager ?
 
Aesma said:
You didn't say if the BIOS saw it. What about the drive manager ?
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That was my confusion. It was unclear what did not see the drive. Normally we have to question these things because some users (of this and other forums) just plug in a drive and wonder why they do not get a drive letter in windows. And call that situation "drive does not show up or not detected ..."
 
Normally we have to question these things because some users (of this and other forums) just plug in a drive and wonder why they do not get a drive letter in windows.
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And I'll bet this situation is the same. ;)
 
It should auto clock-down to SATA-II frequencies, if it does not automatically clock-down, then that is when the jumper is used as a 'manual lock'.

Otherwise it should work. In your case, the drive may be DOA, or as the others have stated, you need to make sure it has a drive letter in Windows.
 
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