adding an extra ide drive to a sata system.

[algernon]

You all have been most helpful on with all of my recent upgrade questions.

Here is one more:

I need to pull files off of my old 80gb HD (IDE) and also want to use it for extra storage on my new system.

I may "punt" and drop it in a USB enclosure.

But some of you have suggested dropping in the system itself.

How hard is it gonna be to use both SATA and IDE?

My new system has an SATA Drive (New Dell 8400).

What is involved in this install?

Reformat?, Boot Sequences? etc?

Thanks.

[Ranulf]

Well as long as you have a free IDE channel (most still have 2) and put the hard drive as master on that ide channel it should be fine. Since you're already running the machine off of the sata drive it should be all setup to auto boot from that drive so the ide just becomes another hard drive in the system.

Once installed, I'd recommend pulling the files you want to keep off the old drive to the new and then formatting the old drive just to keep things clean.

[algernon]

well.

It appears that a only have one IDE connector which is being used by my dvd burner.

Am I limited to the external hard drive option?

Is there an adapter from IDE to SATA (I have 3 avail SATA)?

I am thinking that the USB 2.0 external case is the answer.  Is this my only option?

Thanks.

[stiffler]

If you want to, you can have your HDD on the same channel as your DVD drive.  You will need an IDE cable with two connectors on it.  These can be had at any computer store such as CompUSA.

I believe that THIS will allow you to use your IDE drive on the SATA controller.  You will also need a SATA cable.

I haven't had any problem running two external USB 2.0 hard drive enclosures.  Just make sure you read some reviews before settling on one because some are better than others.  The cheap one I had didn't work properly.  I have two of THESE and they work great.  THIS one did not work.  Like I said, if you go this route be sure to read some reviews and follow the directions.