Tried to upgrade hard drive on F572US...no pins

WTH, I have the compaq F572us and I bought a WD 160 GB SATA drive because the HD in my computer is a Hitachi SATA 80 GB (scsi/SATA) drive. I used Acronis and put the Western digital 160 GB HD into the usb enclosure and everything went well. I removed my 80 GB Hitachi from the computer and was excited to put in the WD 160 GB hard drive.....what the heck, same number of pins however the original HD has actual pins (7/22) the new HD has the same number of pins but they are embedded in plastic and exposed only on one side where as the original SATA HD has pins exposed on both sides that "clamp" into the slots.

Is this the typical Compaq junk where you have to buy everything from them or is there an adapter? Both drives are 2.5" SATA (Serial ATA). What do I do? am I screwed?

 

There's a plastic adapter that's probably still stuck to your old HDD. A SATA drive without an adapter should just look like there are two rows of pins a few mm long sticking out of it.

 

Thanks...learn something new each day. Easier than replacing my HD on my tower once that was figured out...thanks again!!!