The question is will I be able to hang in my existing IDE drive as a slave ?
Most MBs which support SATA also have IDE connectors, the trick is to set the boot-priority in BIOS so that it doesn't try and boot from the IDE device, but from the SATA device(s) - else you'll not get any further than you are currently
A typical setup for a PC having SATA drives and IDE DVD/CD drives is they have set the CD/DVD as "master" (in IDE terms) since it will be the only device on the IDE port... So watch your jumper settings when you reconnect your old hard disk to the same IDE port - chances are (PROB90) that it is also set as master. On an IDE port with two devices they either both need to be "CS" (cable select)
or one needs to be set master the other slave.
...and the practicallity of data retrival.
If you get stuck with this bit, I know a man who can
