On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 23:53:09 -0400, Matthew Brush wrote:

> > >Is there any way I could use a 3.5 in HD in it and
> > use it as a desktop
> > >or maybe as an in car PC?
>
> Using a desktop hard-drive shouldn't be hard.  Look at
> the pinouts (link below).  They are exactly the same
> except for the last few pins which provide power.  Not
> sure if the desktop drive needs more current than a
> laptop one (probably) but it shouldn't matter much.

Errr... not much!  :-)  3.5" (Desktop) drives need +12V and +5V, 2.5" (Laptop) drives need +5V only.  Grabbing
a couple of handy drives, the laptop one wants 500mA at 5V, the desktop one needs that plus 700mA at 12V.
There's those great big plates to spin, of course.

The further difficuly is getting a cable to atach to the drive connector in the laptop - they are available
the other way round, to use a laptop drive in a desktop machine, but I've never seen the reverse.  (A shame,
because I'd like to temporarily use two drives with my ThinkPad, and a cable from one plug to two sockets
would let me use two 2.5" drives, externally, at once.)

Unless there's a missing (and unobtainable) caddy/tray/housing of some sort, I'd have thought the OP would be
better off using a 2.5" drive.

Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England

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