I got the adaptor from eBay, and I cant see any method of not using it. An external enclosure still uses an adaptor, and no motherboards other than laptops support those drives.
That is not the adaptor I have now. The adaptor is the one below.
I think that adaptor doesn't work even though I have no idea how something can go wrong with something like that. I purchased this one,
and it looks pretty close to the one in that link. I hope it works because this is driving me crazy and hindering my install!!! I'm anxious to get it in there!