Power Supply Querry

[D_Stark]

Howdy people! I am having a small problem. I want to take an old Gateway case and use it to house and power my hard drives. I will have to route the SATA, PATA cables through a hole in the side, but I want to power them with the Gateway PSU. Can I use the switch on my Gateway to turn on the hard drives? Or could I wire over to my main tower and use just one switch. Any ideas on how to connect it up?
Also I would like to buy a grommet to keep metal edges from contacting wires. I've looked around town and sofar I haven't been able to buy any. Any help finding some would be appreciated.
I would love to buy a bigger case, but I'm unemployed right now.

[doctorgonzo]

How old is the Gateway? Do you know if it is an AT or ATX PSU? If it is an ATX, then in order for the PSU to turn on, it has to get a signal from the motherboard or you have to fake the signal by jumpering the 20-pin connector.

Is there really no room in your case for the drives? PATA maximum cable lengths are quite short, so you are going to have to keep both cases right next to each other, if they will be able to reach at all. I don't know if this is the best way to go about solving your problem.

[D_Stark]

The old Gateway is a Mico ATX. How do I jumper the 20-pin conector?
That old Gateway is our second computer, (400mhz AMD, 64 meg ram, onboard audio,video and a whopping 13.5GB HD running WIN98) But that's the computer that got me into building my own. The MOBO went out in the first year. Tech came out (Gateway's mother plant was only 5 miles away, which was why we bought a Gateway in the first place) repaced the MOBO and I thought "I can do that". Which is what got me building my own computers. 6 so far.

[not important]

Grommets should be available at an auto parts store and I would imagine that Radio Shack carries them.

[KilluminatiStyle]

You can "jump" the psu by following the guide in the links below.

http://wiki.extremeoverclocking.com/wiki/Power_Supply
http://www.hardwaremods.com/guides/psu_jump/psu_jumping.html

Now if you want to beable to turn it on the same time you turn on your PC it shouldn't be too hard. Instead of using the wire or paper clip like suggested you can wire it to the power button of your case. I'm not sure if having 2 psu's running through the switch will harm anything but I don't think so. Alternately, if the PSU has a switch on the back you could just leave the JUMPER in... and flip the switch on before you power up your main PC and flip it off after you've powered down your main PC. If there isn't a switch on the PSU already then just wire one in through the JUMPER mod in the links.

However, I do have to say that I take no responsibililty if somthing goes "poof".

[David M]

Why not put those internal drives in some cases designed for internal drives so they can reside outside the case?...hidden away in the back. This would be a cleaner setup than having two computer cases side by side.

[D_Stark]

No money right now.