hi guys,

i recently purchased a DVD writer and when i came to taking the one i'm replacing out of the tower i notice that the plugs are different, i haven't seen one like it before, the writer i just purchased i've seen plenty of times. Can anyone tel me the difference between the two and if there is only two, as i do not not know what type i'm suppose to be looking for.

just unfortunate i took it out the box before i noticed so there goes the return idea.

I'm guessing you got a SATA drive instead of an IDE drive, that uses the flat ribbon connector. You shouldn't have any problems retuning it, but if you do you can always get a SATA controller card

yea places are pretty leniant on hardware compatability as long as you RMA or take it back to the store quickly. Especially if you just exchange for something that will work for you.

the one i purcahsed that won't fit has a back like this:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/images/artic...line/1439-3.jpg

while the one i'm replacing has a back like this:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/artic...7/2257/Rear.jpg


which is which?

You have a SATA you bought an IDE. Your computer should have an IDE port on it though.

the first one has IDE, the plug on the left side might be sata i'm kind of a newb on sata. the second link i have no idea...haven't seen that before. You should be able to hook up the one that doesnt fit with IDE ribbon cable unless your hard drive is taking up a lone plug.

where does the power go in on the second drive?

there isn't any plugs in the tower that will go into the drive i bought, only have the funny ones in the tower.

One poster was trying to get his old pata hard drive in a new computer, no ide controller so he bought a pci card then he found out there was no pata power connector coming from his power supply, I looked up the dell in question and showed him what the connector looked like, he swore he didn't have one

so the second link was pata? where does the power go in on that?

th second link is sata and the power is the wider one on the left, it has more contacts as the sata power interface was designed for hot swapping

cool, thanks for clarifying