What about the Trials and Tribulations?

The trials and tribulations were with the new Western Digital "Green" 2.0 Terabyte (2 TB) hard drive. (That's purchased item #2.)

At first all seemed well. I bought the drive over the web as a Store Pick-Up item from BestBuy.com. Great price (they had all WD drives on sale for 15% off. Big drive.

I already knew that my old desktop, into which this drive would go, could handle 250 MB SATA drives using the SATA connectors on the motherboar. But, I'd found out the hard way that it could not handle drives that were 1 TB. The computer simply could not complete its Power-On Self Test (POST). It never got change to start Windows.

So, I had already installed a Promise Technology 4-port SATA II card, which solved that problem.

The new Western Digital 2 TB drive would be my fourth SATA drive to be installed in my home computers. All the others had gone well (once I added an adapter card because the motherrboard's SATA ports could not read the 1 TB drives). The Seagate and Hitachi SATA drive boxes included everything I needed.

I opened the Western Digital drive's box. I started unpacking it... and I found that I was stuck with a disassembled computer and no way to power the new hard drive.

Sure, I had an available power plug from the power supply, especially since I was replacing older, smaller drives.

The problem was that, while the other brands included both a SATA data cable and a Molex-to-SATA power adapter so the drive could be used with older computers, Western Digital didn't think the power adapter was a necessary piece off hardware.

So, it was "get back in the car and go to Best Buy to get an adapter" time. Unfortunately, Best Buy similarly didn't think that it was necessary to sell power adapters for SATA drives to be used with older computers.

Fortunately, one of the independent computer shops in town was open, so I was able to get the adapter I needed. Thanks, Computer Heaven!
(That's purchase item #2.)

Of course, I could have read the product description at BestBuy.com more carefully. I could have read the box when I picked up the drive. On the other hand, I now know that Western Digital isn't the right choice for me and my desktop computers.

Tip: If you're going to add a SATA drive to your computer, make sure the manufacturer includes everything you're going to need...

Copyright © 2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.