SATA to IDE?
 

I know you can connect an IDE hard-disk to a SATA motherboard by means of a converter cable but can you connect a SATA hard-disk to an IDE-only motherboard with a similar cable?

Or is it only possible via a SATA adapter card?


Ta,
Charles

You'll need a PCI SATA card...

Charles,

The SATA to PATA Converters are not very good. They cause a lot data errors. I had to use them on IDE Drives in order to use SATA RAID on Mobos before the SATA Drives hit the market. They were expensive and caused a lot of data errors.

If you have an SATA Mobo, use SATA Drives. Their price is very close to IDE Drives now. :ok:

Take Care,

Richard

Thanks Chipzilla and Richard,

I only need to be able to connect SATA HDDs to a IDE-only motherboard to test customers' drives - I have one here that doesn't want to boot up on a Dell so I just need to access it to backup the data (if poss) before I format it and re-install windows.

So I bought a relatively inexpensive SATA adapter card (made by MRi UK ltd) - it happens to handle RAID 0+1, which is something I'd like to go towards one day, hence kill two birds with one stone kinda thing. Would that tend to cause data errors Richard or are you talking about cable converters?

Your thoughts appreciated, as always.

Cheers
Charles

Charles,

These are the types of converters I was talking about that do not work very well:

http://images10.newegg.com/productim...999-401-04.JPG

Take Care,

Richard

Mine's a

http://www.mri.co.uk/images/serialataraid1.jpg

Haven't tried yet -- but I guess it'll do the job.

Just got to decide RAID 0, 1 or 0+1...mmmm

Charles,

That is a PCI Controller Card, they are fine, just like the old IDE PCI Controllers. There are no problems I have heard of with them, short of making sure it is on a PCI Slot that does not Share IRQs. :ok:

Take Care,

Richard