Only yellow and ground power cable to run 3.5" sata hard drive?

[okppko]

Switching hard drives rather often, and after some time the sata power supply connector gets unstable. Not a well made system. Even if I use a brand new female sata power supply connector, it may not work.

Q: Sata connector has 15 pins, but the power supply only 4 cables, reason?

On connector red cable is 5v, yellow 12v and rest ground.

Q: Can you power supply a 3.5” sata drive using a connector only having 2 cables and that would be the yellow and a ground cable?

-Isn't only the 2.5” sata hard drives that use 5v?

Thanks.

 

[Saintarthur]

The SATA power connector has 5 Ground connections, 3 X 12V, 3 X 5V, 3 X 3.3V and a spin up pin that is only used in enterprise class drives.

You do not need to supply 3.3V.
You DO need to supply 12V and 5V and you DO need ground, obviously.
Logic, i.e. what does the actual computing work on the motherboard on the bottom of the drive needs low voltage 3,3V but 5V will do. the driver circuitry needs 5V, and the motors need 12V.

If you're having that much trouble with the connectors get 4pin molex to SATA converters and plug them into molex connectors on your PSU. Then just plug/un-plug the molex connectors.
More probably though, there is a problem with your PSU, they are dirt cheap, get a new one.

 

[okppko]

Thank you for answering.
I'm using a cheap psu. But its quiet new. I think the connectors are the problem.
One hard drive can make trouble using a connector. Another hard drive runs fine using the same connector seconds later. Its a mystery. Some drives have to use a certain connector and be placed in a certain way to work.
One drive makes the most difficulties. Likely because one pine to the left got bent. And bending it back in place hasn't solved the problem.
I tried two different sata swap bays. Some drives will run others not.
When a power supply error appears on a running drive, The os may freeze and cannot be restarted, or begins to run in slow motion.
You suggest using a sata molex adapter. That is what I've used for a long time.
Same situation. And I've tried a sata extension/splitter adapter.
Its such a puzzle, that I can use a new sata molex adapter, and the drive will not run. I can touch and listen to the drive, and it won't spin. Sometimes it will spin up and down. That may damage the os.
When I connect a 2.5" hard drive, the drive may click wildly. Reconnecting the sata power supply, and the drive runs fine.
I tried a more expensive sata molex adapter. Wouldn't run. Using another psu molex connector, and it ran. I can see no difference between the two molex psu connectors. The molex connector isn't fast switching friendly. I asked the 12v question because I wanted to use a dc jack connector to make the connection.
A 2.5" drive can run on 5v, but you say a 3.5" needs both 5 and 12v. That means I cannot use the dc jack solution.