not enough IDE port for 3 device

[arrayprofile]

Hi there, I just bought a Seagate IDE 400G hard drive and wanted to use
it as my second hard drive. My Dell desktop already has a SATA hard
drive. Unfortunately after I bought this hard drive, I found out that
my system board only has 1 IDE port which has already been used up for
2 device: a DVD ROM and a DVD burner. So now my question is:

1. can I use an IDE hard drive together with a SATA hard drive all
togther?
2. Can I try to get a IDE interface cable that has 3 connectors (1
master, 2 slaves) for connecting my IDE hard drive, in addition to the
2 DVD drives? I searched google, in one occasion (Years 1999 post) that
1 IDE port can only connect up to 2 devices, is that still true now? I
called DELL support, the guy said I can use this configuration, but I
am not sure if he really knows this.
3. If I can use such a cable, where can I buy it? My 2 DVD drive is on
the top on the computer, and the hard drive is at the bottom of the
computer, so I need a cable that is extened quite a bit on the 3rd
connector.
4. My system board does has a floppy drive port which looks like an IDE
port, can someone know for sure a floppy drive is an IDE port which I
can use to hook up my hard drive?

If I know this cause so many problem, I would have bought a SATA drive
instead. really pissed off

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi there, I just bought a Seagate IDE 400G hard drive and wanted to use
it as my second hard drive. My Dell desktop already has a SATA hard
drive. Unfortunately after I bought this hard drive, I found out that
my system board only has 1 IDE port which has already been used up for
2 device: a DVD ROM and a DVD burner. So now my question is:

1. can I use an IDE hard drive together with a SATA hard drive all
togther?

No problem.

2. Can I try to get a IDE interface cable that has 3 connectors (1
master, 2 slaves) for connecting my IDE hard drive, in addition to the
2 DVD drives? I searched google, in one occasion (Years 1999 post) that
1 IDE port can only connect up to 2 devices, is that still true now? I
called DELL support, the guy said I can use this configuration, but I
am not sure if he really knows this.

Shows that DELL support sucks. No, you can only use 2 drives
per IDE cable, since there are only two drive selcect lines
in there. There is no way to use with reasonable effort.

3. If I can use such a cable, where can I buy it? My 2 DVD drive is on
the top on the computer, and the hard drive is at the bottom of the
computer, so I need a cable that is extened quite a bit on the 3rd
connector.

You cannot buy the cable, since it does not exist.

4. My system board does has a floppy drive port which looks like an IDE
port, can someone know for sure a floppy drive is an IDE port which I
can use to hook up my hard drive?

No. Floppy is 34 pin, IDE is 40 pin.

If I know this cause so many problem, I would have bought a SATA drive
instead. really pissed off

You can try to return the drive. Some vendors will accept that.
You can also try to exchange it for an SATA one.

Failing that you can use an IDE controller card. I made good
experiences with the Promise Ultra 100TX2 (or 133TX2). The controller
should cost around 30-40 USD/EUR and requires one free PCI slot.

They support two busses each, i.e. 4 disks. Some people have had
trouble with connecting CDROM drives to them, but with HDDs they are
very reliable and fast enough.

Arno

 

[Impmon]

Hi there, I just bought a Seagate IDE 400G hard drive and wanted to use
it as my second hard drive. My Dell desktop already has a SATA hard
drive. Unfortunately after I bought this hard drive, I found out that
my system board only has 1 IDE port which has already been used up for
2 device: a DVD ROM and a DVD burner. So now my question is:

1. can I use an IDE hard drive together with a SATA hard drive all
togther?

You could. I do know there are IDE to SATA adapter and vice versa. I
would suggest you take the DVD-ROM out and plug the 400 GB hard drive
there as the master. DVD burner are cheap nowday that using separate
DVD-ROM just for reading or video playback is redunant. And if you
rip CD or DVD, it is usually a lot faster to rip to hard drive first,
then burn to blank.

2. Can I try to get a IDE interface cable that has 3 connectors (1
master, 2 slaves) for connecting my IDE hard drive, in addition to the
2 DVD drives? I searched google, in one occasion (Years 1999 post) that
1 IDE port can only connect up to 2 devices, is that still true now? I
called DELL support, the guy said I can use this configuration, but I
am not sure if he really knows this.

Never heard of any official support for 3 IDE drives to pne port and I
think your DELL support got the computer cetrificate out of cracker
jack box. IDE cable has 3 connectors, one for the main board or IDE
card.

3. If I can use such a cable, where can I buy it? My 2 DVD drive is on
the top on the computer, and the hard drive is at the bottom of the
computer, so I need a cable that is extened quite a bit on the 3rd
connector.

Better to remove the DVD-ROM and put the hard drive right there.
5.25" mount for 3.5 drives are available cheaply. $5 from a decent
computer stores to about $20 from a big name stores like Best Buy.

4. My system board does has a floppy drive port which looks like an IDE
port, can someone know for sure a floppy drive is an IDE port which I
can use to hook up my hard drive?

If there are floppy to IDE adapter somewhere, it'd be slower than
molases. The IDE drive using parallel ATA can theorically sustain 133
mb/sec with realistic sustained rate of around 50MB/sec. Floppy drive
standard have not chanced in years and I believe they are about
4k/sec. Making a 4GB image of a DVD for ripping would take almost 300
hours to write to any hard drive on floppy drive port >_<

If I know this cause so many problem, I would have bought a SATA drive
instead. really pissed off

If you bought the hard drive locally, you could try to exchange. But
if it was up to me, I'd chuck the DVD_ROM and put the 400GB hard drive
and stick a Post-It note on the PC to not buy any PATA drives and but
only SATA next time. SATA is likely to replace PATA in the future
with smaller cable size, jumperless setup, and higher transfer rate
that parallel version cannot hold.

If you absolutely need to keep the DVD-ROM and burner, and you have a
spare PCI slot, you could pick up an IDE card for about $20 or so, it
should have 2 PATA ports for you to play with.

 

[Bob Willard]

Hi there, I just bought a Seagate IDE 400G hard drive and wanted to use
it as my second hard drive. My Dell desktop already has a SATA hard
drive. Unfortunately after I bought this hard drive, I found out that
my system board only has 1 IDE port which has already been used up for
2 device: a DVD ROM and a DVD burner. So now my question is:

1. can I use an IDE hard drive together with a SATA hard drive all
togther?
2. Can I try to get a IDE interface cable that has 3 connectors (1
master, 2 slaves) for connecting my IDE hard drive, in addition to the
2 DVD drives? I searched google, in one occasion (Years 1999 post) that
1 IDE port can only connect up to 2 devices, is that still true now? I
called DELL support, the guy said I can use this configuration, but I
am not sure if he really knows this.
3. If I can use such a cable, where can I buy it? My 2 DVD drive is on
the top on the computer, and the hard drive is at the bottom of the
computer, so I need a cable that is extened quite a bit on the 3rd
connector.
4. My system board does has a floppy drive port which looks like an IDE
port, can someone know for sure a floppy drive is an IDE port which I
can use to hook up my hard drive?

If I know this cause so many problem, I would have bought a SATA drive
instead. really pissed off

First, before spending any money, double-check that your MB really only
has one IDE port. Most MBs have one IDE controller which supports two
IDE ports and, therefore, four IDE devices.

{Other than the above thought, I don't disagree with any of the other
replies.}

 

[Eric Gisin]

Exchange the drive for the SATA model.

 

[arrayprofile]

Thank you all fotmeh suggestion. I think most agree to take out the
DVD-ROM and put hard rive there. It is a good suggestion though I
decided to return the hard drive with a $5 shipping charge to
outpost.com. The drive was a good buy for $100. Outpost also had a sale
of $110 for a 400GB SATA drive a while ago, so I decided to wait a
little bit for another sale.

Thank you all. I learned a lot here.