Hi, bit of story here and a warning to anyone who doesnt know!!I know its my own fault BUT naively expected that sata connectors would be standardised. I got a freebie PC and after taking it to bits and putting it back together it was running well. Unfortunately it had only one sata cable for the power supply and I wanted to connect 3 drives, a ssd with the OS and two 2TB drives one old that was dodgy (bad sectors) and a new one that I was going to transfer the files to.
Thought hey, I am sure I have a spare cable left over from a previous set up. Eventually found it and just plugged it in and away
. Hmm whats that smell!!!! smoke!!! Rip the power cord out of the PC. As I had not secured the drives but placed them on card on the bottom of the PC I thought damn, one has moved and shorted out. Hoping its not the new one I take all the drives and cables out and find that,thankfully,it is the old drive.
(Files on it were not that important and copied to my sons pc.)
On closer inspection I see that it was not shorting on the frame it is ONLY the connector that has burnt, drive has a bit of charring and pins on the connector now a different colour and a bit of melted plastic from the cable connector. The drive socket cleaned up and whoopee worked ok ( back on 2 drives so used the original cable that came with the PC.)
Transfer project still on, I connected the new drive up to the second cable which still had a unused (unburnt) sata socket and £$%&**!!! same thing happened - scorched the socket on the new drive. Again the drive still worked, after cleaning, on the original cable.
Took some time to sink in but I removed both cables to compare and Whoa different wiring!!!
Gave up on the project till now and having found another cable off another power supply thought I will try again. Twice bitten I have been more careful and looks like its a good job ALL3 connectors are wired differently. What is annoying all 3 plug into the power supply.
The sockets are supposedly shaped to stop that happening? 2 are the same and one is different but even the different one has only one of the 6 "pegs" different and as it is a "U" instead of a square it still goes in. I have tried all 3 in different sockets on the power supply and they all just plug in - no resistance at all.
Maybe I can rewire a cable in the same format as the one that works. Anyone else come across this?
Thought hey, I am sure I have a spare cable left over from a previous set up. Eventually found it and just plugged it in and away

(Files on it were not that important and copied to my sons pc.)
On closer inspection I see that it was not shorting on the frame it is ONLY the connector that has burnt, drive has a bit of charring and pins on the connector now a different colour and a bit of melted plastic from the cable connector. The drive socket cleaned up and whoopee worked ok ( back on 2 drives so used the original cable that came with the PC.)
Transfer project still on, I connected the new drive up to the second cable which still had a unused (unburnt) sata socket and £$%&**!!! same thing happened - scorched the socket on the new drive. Again the drive still worked, after cleaning, on the original cable.
Took some time to sink in but I removed both cables to compare and Whoa different wiring!!!
Gave up on the project till now and having found another cable off another power supply thought I will try again. Twice bitten I have been more careful and looks like its a good job ALL3 connectors are wired differently. What is annoying all 3 plug into the power supply.
The sockets are supposedly shaped to stop that happening? 2 are the same and one is different but even the different one has only one of the 6 "pegs" different and as it is a "U" instead of a square it still goes in. I have tried all 3 in different sockets on the power supply and they all just plug in - no resistance at all.
Maybe I can rewire a cable in the same format as the one that works. Anyone else come across this?
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