Buggered Motherboard Sata Connector

[101RRS]

I was cleaning the dust out of my desktop computer today and and when I went to switch it back on it would not detect the operating system.

On pulling the case off I found that the primary sata connector on the motherboard is damaged. The metal contacts are there but the plastic housing surrounding these have broken off so the cable from the main hard drive cannot connect to the motherboard.

I run two 120gb sata hard drives - suppose I can tell the computer to boot from the secondary sata connector and connect the maindrive to it but I did want to set up Raid so that the two drives would mirror each other.

So some questions to those who can actually fix motherboards.

1. Can I take the motherboard somewhere to solder in a new sata connector?

2. As a new motherboard is about $250, is repair a cost effective option.

3.Can you buy connector cables that will allow my secondary SATA hard drive to run from one of the IDE connectors.

4. Can you run a mix of sata and ide connections and still have a raid function

5. Will raid run on ide connections.

I appreciate there are other options but this will do for now. Any answers to the above questions would be appreciated.

Oh - it is a P4 3Ghz.

Thanks

Garry

[WhiteD3]

How old's the MOBO? Would you spend $100-$150 to get it fixed or buy a new one?

There's some good boards out there for < $200.

Cheers.

[Blknight.aus]

$100-150 to replace an on board sata plug? Cmon and the rest......

motherboards are generally a throw away item unless it something like an SMD component thats obviously failed or an obvious dry joint somewhere and thats getting increasingly rare.

If the plug was right at the edge of the board and was only connected to a single layer of the board (remember most are at least double sided boards these days) you might just get in with <$200 for replacing the plug, If you get lucky and its just a dry joint then it should only got about $100 including a soak test.

Hows the plug damaged? bent pins, if thats the case They can be straightened if your very careful have delicate fingers and the right improvised tools. (or a proper pin straitening tool.)

[101RRS]

As I thought might be do away with raid and just use the secondary sata connector.

I can straighten the pins no problem but the rest of the housing that holds the cable in place is what is broken - I guess I can glue cable in place - I have nothing to loose.

Does anyone know if you can get an adaptor so that sata harddrives can run off the ide connectors.

Thanks

Garry

[loanrangie]

As I thought might be do away with raid and just use the secondary sata connector.

I can straighten the pins no problem but the rest of the housing that holds the cable in place is what is broken - I guess I can glue cable in place - I have nothing to loose.

Does anyone know if you can get an adaptor so that sata harddrives can run off the ide connectors.

Thanks

Garry
Not sure about sata to ide but i have seen pci sata cards.

[spudboy]

1. Can I take the motherboard somewhere to solder in a new sata connector?
>> Probably not worth it. Quicker to get a replacement motherboard

2. As a new motherboard is about $250, is repair a cost effective option.

3.Can you buy connector cables that will allow my secondary SATA hard drive to run from one of the IDE connectors.
>> Don't reckon. Different technology.

4. Can you run a mix of sata and ide connections and still have a raid function
>> Depending upon motherboard, yes. I've got some MSI mothoerboards that let you join 2 SATA and 2 IDE drives into a single array.

5. Will raid run on ide connections.
>> Yep. Thats what lower end systems did before SATA came along. Higher end system use SCSI.

>> Can I ask why you are running RAID, and if it is just mirroring you're doing or striping?



Replys under original posts

[roverfj1200]

Most M/B have a number of sata plugs( Mine has 5) just plug into any one and leave the damaged one unpluged..

BIOs will detect which one the P/HD is connected to..

[HangOver]

1. Can I take the motherboard somewhere to solder in a new sata connector?
Try is yourself if are resigned to buying another mobo anyhow

2. As a new motherboard is about $250, is repair a cost effective option.
$250 is the price for top of the line intel or very good asus etc. you can get raid on much cheaper boards. not really worth repairing unless you do it yourself.

3.Can you buy connector cables that will allow my secondary SATA hard drive to run from one of the IDE connectors.
Yes you can but dont know the cost

4. Can you run a mix of sata and ide connections and still have a raid function
you can have raid on either the SATA or IDE, but really it depends on the spec of the board they differ a lot

5. Will raid run on ide connections.
Yes, again it will/can but depends on your specific board

Steve

[101RRS]

Thanks to everyone for your comments. I have managed to get the main drive to run from the secondary sata connector so the computer is now operational. I will connect the second hard drive via a spare USB port and a cheap hard drive enclosure.

Cheers

Garry

[roverfj1200]

Garry
I did this and Had a S#*T load of problems..Lost data..

You can get a IDE Pci card which is faster and cheeper..

About $35

That is if the drive has IDE

Cheers