[danskibee]

Hey guys,

Just recently got a new PC, which is slightly better than my old one (if I transfer all the upgrades I did to the old PC) however, the new hard drive I put into the old PC is an IDE drive, as is the spare DVD drive I want to put into the new PC, but there is only one IDE socket/connector on the motherboard that I can spot, and that currently has the new PC's main 160GB HDD and DVDRW drive connected to it. Is there anyway to connect the two new drives (the 80GB HDD and DVD drive) onto the same IDE connector as the existing 2 drives (HDD and DVDRW)?

I'm quite technically minded but this one has stumped me, the new PC is quite a bit newer than my other PC and I'm guessing it has newer types of connections for hard drives etc. which is now SATA? If I'm not mistaken.

On another note, the gfx card I had in the old PC was AGP, and guess what, the new PC only has PCI slots grrr! So that will have to be changed. The new PC is Vista ready and has a better onboard processor, but in order to be better that my old one it needs new RAM (which is also incompatible with the 1.5gig I had in the old one) new gfx card and the spare 80gig of hard drive I have.

However, if it's too difficult (and costly) to upgrade the new one with components I've already got (or by buying new ones to fit) I'll probably sack it off and continue to use my old PC with the nice new 19" LCD monitor I got with the new PC.

Oh, and btw, before you ask, I didn't buy the new PC, it was free with the new broadband I'm on so I haven't wasted any money....yet

Thanks to anyone that can help me

 

[mswedle]

only speaking to your drive connection problems, if you are absolutely sure you only have one IDE slot, then you'll need to buy a PCI IDE card. They are pretty cheap, just make sure that you put your hard drives on the PCI card and your optical drives on the mobo (always worked better for me that way)

 

[crjdriver]

While it is possible to connect ide devices to a sata controller with this adapter, I do not recommend you doing so. The only real way to do this is with an ide controller card. Note many ide controller card do support CD drives, however they are not bootable when connected to the controller card.

 

[danskibee]

Well I have one IDE controller on the motherboard which I can use to connect 2 of the 4 drives. I was thinking about getting one of those sata/ide adapters for 2 of the drives, perhaps one DVD drive and the slave hard drive, leaving the main OS hard drive and one DVDRW drive on the IDE interface? Would this work? I'm just thinking of doing it this way to save my PCI port from being used as I might need it at somepoint for something else - I think I have 2 or 3 PCI ports and one is already in use by sound card so might need the other 2 in future...don't know what for lol. Plus I've heard that the PCI IDE card might not boot drive attached to it?

Plus, with an adapter such as the one you've linked to crjdriver, does it need separately powering or does the power to that card then power the hard drive itself? As my PSU might feel the strain if the adaptors need powering also, especially with purchasing a new higher powered graphics unit.

Thanks

 

[crjdriver]

Yes it shows a separate power connector. I would suspect you will loose some bandwidth using something like this. Again while it is possible I do not recommend using something like this. The only correct way is an adapter card.