Maximum PC

Waiting for a USB 3.0 PCI adapter to come in the mail. Buying a WD 3TB external drive today.

My Win 7 install was done with IDE settings on NOT AHCI. Can I plug my new external drive into one of the USB 2.0 ports and install drivers, firmware updates (I think I have to do a format cause it's 3TBs) and then successfully plug it into the USB 3.0 adapter when it shows up without any problems?

SATA settings (AHCI or IDE) has nothing to do with using USB (be it 2.0 or 3.0) hard drives, so install away

I know the safe thing to do is to wait for the PCI adapter to come and install the new external drive with the new USB 3.0 port but.......who does anything safe?!?!!

Just figure I could get a head start and load drivers, update firmware and even start to backup files to the drive. I should be able to just shut down the pc, unplug from USB 2.0 and plug it into the new USB 3.0 adapter when it arrives.....right??? It will see it as new hardware and find the drivers already loaded into the system?? As opposed to AHCI which allows hot swapping.

edit - yeah, now I think about it IDE/AHCI is for the SATA ports. The fact that mostly hard drives plug into them had me thinking the USB ports were included too but I guess they are not.

1. There are no drivers to install/load. Windows will do this for you.
2. There's no reason to update the firmware on your devices unless it's absolutely necessary.
3. All Windows sees is a USB to hard drive adapter. It doesn't care if it's IDE/AHCI.