Changes

I did more work on the computer. Like the old drive in the upper bay, the replacement drives had a parallel ATA interface. There is only one PATA channel on the motherboard with a single ribbon cable that needs to connect to both the replacement hard drive and the optical drive. At one end of the ribbon cable is a connector that sits in the PATA channel. Twelve inches from that connector is another connector that goes to a drive, and 18 inches from the first connector is the other end of the ribbon cable with another drive connector. Thus the two drive connectors on the ribbon cable are six inches apart. I fixed the PATA connector to the optical drive in the upper drive bay, but the other drive connector would reach only to the top position in the lower drive bay. I wanted to find a way to put the new drive lower in the bay, but there were no other PATA channels and no extensions for the ribbon cable, so I decided to put the drive at the top of the lower bay. However, when I tried to insert the drive, it collided with two expansion cards and a heat sink and would not go into the bay. I removed one of the expansion cards, but the heat sink still kept the drive from going in. The upper bay was also obstructed with cables except where the old drive had been. There I would only have to detach the power supply to put in the new drive.

I did more work on the computer. Like the old drive in the upper bay, the replacement drives had a parallel ATA interface. There is only one PATA channel on the motherboard with a single ribbon cable that needs to connect to both the replacement hard drive and the optical drive. At one end of the ribbon cable is a connector that sits in the PATA channel. Twelve inches from that connector is another connector that goes to a drive, and 18 inches from the first connector is the other end of the ribbon cable with another drive connector. Thus the two drive connectors on the ribbon cable are six inches apart. I fixed the PATA connector to the optical drive in the upper drive bay, but the other drive connector would reach only to the top position in the lower drive bay. I wanted to find a way to put the new drive lower in the bay, but there were no other PATA channels and no extensions for the ribbon cable, so I decided to put the drive at the top of the lower bay. However, when I tried to insert the drive, it collided with two expansion cards and a heat sink and would not go into the bay. I removed one of the expansion cards, but the heat sink still kept the drive from going in. The upper bay was also obstructed with cables except where the old drive had been. There I would only have to detach the power supply to put in the new drive.