Always Double Confirm!

So, this one fine day, the same day that I got my hands on my very own, kick-ass MyBook, I bought an additional dvd-rom drive for my mate, ‘cos her very own Dell deskstop’s dvd-rom died down on her few months after she owned this new desktop from Dell. How bad can this be?! A new desktop, bought over from Dell website online. Everything’s fine but the dvd-rom, which she hardly use, spoilt and unrecoverable few months later?! Gosh! What has happen to Dell desktops’ quality nowadays?!

She hasn’t got the time to call up Dell helpdesk and request for a change on it as it was still under warranty. Well, one has gotta job to do, a family to take care of, a kid to raise. What do you expect? Hence, I helped her out to fix the whole problem.

Rite, got herself a dvd-rom from one of the IT store downtown. Therefore, I went to her house and fix it up. But, *yes, there’s always a BUT* it turns out otherwise. Most desktops nowadays are fixed with SATA cable, and not with IDE cable. You might be asking : “WHAT!?”. See pictures below for easier understanding.


On the left, are bunch of IDE cables, which are bigger, wider in size.
On the right, are the SATA cables, which are smaller, slimmer in size, and space-saving.

When I opened up the box that I got from the IT store, the back of the dvd-rom it turns out like picture below, which requires IDE cable.

But instead, my friend’s Dell desktop is only fixed with SATA slots inside her desktop. As a result, I have to go back to my house, took my desktop’s dvd-rom with SATA cable on it, *which I bought it in December2008* and fixed it into her desktop. Here are some pictures to show you the difference at the back of dvd-rom with IDE and SATA slots at the back.

dvd-rom with IDE slot

dvd-rom with SATA slot

See the huge difference?? Yea. You got that rite! IDE cabled drives are meant for those desktops that are assembled 3-4 years back. All recent years’ desktops have been equipped with 4 or more SATA slots inside of the desktops.

How dumb was I not to check the back of the dvd-rom at point of purchase. Perhaps I was over-excited with the fact that I’m getting MyBook at that very moment. Ahh well, it’s all been done and dusted now. I gave away my own dvd-rom drive with SATA cable to my mate and I use the one that I bought for her.

When I got back home, I spent nearly 2hours to finally locate a slot, a tiny IDE slot at the back of my machine, and it’s goddamn hard to slot in the IDE cable into my machine. There you go. A lesson well learnt: Always check what you purchase thoroughly before you leave the retail shop or you may face ‘difficulties’ using it when you reach home.