HD compatibility

[Wodrick]

I have a similar problem to that below, windows boot problem, and I feel that, in my case, the HD partition has been trashed, quite how I don't know. However I have taken the decision to use this as an excuse for replacement. I intend to get a new machine and then hang in my old drive and try to recover what I can, mostly docs, mp3s, and jpgs. The purchase I am currently leaning towards uses an ASUS AV8 Deluxe MB and will come with a 200Gb SATA HD. The question is will I be able to hang in my existing IDE drive as a slave ? it's a Maxtor 40 Gb one but the model number escapes me at the moment (at work).
Any offerings appreciated with this and the practicallity of data retrival.

[rustle]

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

[englishal]

And don't forget to "Press F6 to install third party scsi driver" when installing XP! The drivers are normally on the MB utilities CD, and need to be copied to floppy disk, and this inserted when you install XP....Just in case you didn't know, it took me bloody ages to figure this out first time

My MB is a Gigabyte 7N400Pro2 and I've got a sATA boot disk, plus three IDE disks, a DVD burner and DVD player all hooked in ok. As rustle says, make sure the boot order is set to SCSI - CD - FLOPPY - etc but not HDD 0 as the old disk may end up booting.

Cheers