I've received a second 3.5" hard-drive and I'd like to plug it in my desktop computer. The desktop case has only one slot for a hard-drive (3.5") and another slot for a CDROM drive (5.25", I assume). I am no expert in this, but as far as I understand both devices are SATA and share the same connectors.
I would like to take out the SATA CDROM drive (5.25") and connect instead a SATA hard-drive. Superficially the connectors look similar, but I haven't yet tried to plug the connectors used for the CDROM drive into the 2nd hard-drive.
Question:
- Can I plug the 2nd hard-drive into the slot of the CDROM drive? Is it a good idea (I wouldn't want to fry/break anything)?
- And does Linux risk getting confused about that?
Best Answer
This is simple. Buy 3.5" to 5.25" adapter brackets like this
Or, if you do not have a bay blank, buy a 3.5" HDD bay that fits in a 5.25" slot like this
Ebay is a great place to look for little things like these.
Then connect the HDD with the same cables that plugged into the CD-ROM.
In linux, you probably will want to modify your FSTAB configuration to eliminate the OS looking for the CD-ROM on boot, but even if you did not do this, it should not create any problems. Add your mount point for your new HDD while you are in there.