HD diagnostic tests

[lordlundar]

Is ATA and IDE pretty much the same thing?

Not quite. IDE is the controller board on or in the drive, ATA is a designation of the standard.

Confused yet?

For the most part, just making sure you have the PATA connection (the 40 pin connection) is sufficient. The speed will automatically throttle down to the available max.

[LostMyMind]

I was trying to avoid getting into all that. Since now days there pretty much only one ATA-IDE standard. Back in the day however was a different story.

However lordlundar is correct, you have to see if you need both SATA and PATA (serial and parallel) or just PATA. Since most older CD (and even new ones today) are PATA while most HD are SATA these days. PATA is the fat cable connector while SATA is that tiny one. If you got a floppy drive and you don't want to trust the onboard one anymore, you may need one that comes with a floppy drive connector as well.

[lordlundar]

Yeah, these days just check to see if the connector matches. Anything more to know is basically so people can test you.

<hopes he passes his IT Essentials test tomorrow>