I have western digital 10000 rpm SATA drive and an A8V mobo. I bought the following cable for use with the drive since you dont need to attach a molex connector if u have this cable:

(part # WDSC50RCW).

The first time the drive was not detected. I then connected the SATA cable that came with my mobo (it does not have the power module) and the regular molex connector…drive worked fine, so I thought the cable from western digital was faulty…I bought a new one…still didn’t work. So, Western digital sent me a new drive…now I’m facing the ditto same problems with this drive too.

I’ve tried the VIA and Promise connectors…any clues?

Is that power feature available only on certain mobo’s?

:(  :(  :?  :?

From what I’ve been able to gather, that cable isn’t a power cable at all and oddly seems to block the SATA-style power connector. The documentation on the WDC site seems to indicate that you need to connect a molex power connector to the drive. SATA connectors aren’t powered, at least not enough to power a hard drive. Hard drive power cables should come directly from the power supply rails.

:x what a waste this thing has been for me…I thought that by using this I could save up on 1 power cable coming from my power unit and lessen the cable clutter inside the cabinet. It has gold contacts too for the power side, which led me into thinking that I wouldn’t need a molex connector if I used this cable.

Most new power supplies, especially those rated for Athlon64 systems, have one or two SATA-style connectors on them. Look at it this way: you save a molex with your ATi over my nVidia.

My power supply has it too…but it didnt come with the cable for it. However Ultra was supposed to send me one, I doubt they will (their support is the lousiest…got no response to 2 emails of mine…for another product, called them today, phone kept on ringing..no one picked up)