IDE and SATA

[Brian Cryer]

I have a PC with two IDE disks in it. I would like to add another disk and
I'm thinking of SATA (which the m/b supports).

I know that back in the days of NT, if I had both IDE and SCSI in a pc then
the system would always boot from the IDE disk. Is there an issue like this
with IDE and SATA or if I dug would I expect to find an option buried in the
BIOS or can I simply add a new SATA drive and expect all to be well?

TIA.

 

[Og]

1. Open your MoBo manual to the BIOS section.
2. Read the instructions for
a. Enable SATA
b. Enable IDE hard drive as first hard drive boot device
Steve

 

[Kenny]

I too added a SATA drive to 2 IDE drives for extra storage. Explorer or My
Computer just sees it as another drive after it has been partitioned and
formatted.
A related question I have is would I see a performance improvement if XP was
on the SATA drive? I have Acronis True Image, would it be easy enough to do
this?

 

[Brian Cryer]

Thanks Steve,

the pc didn't come with a m/b manual (didn't think about it at the time
....), but you've shown me what to look for so I'll hunt around in the bios
later.

many thanks.

 

[peter]

If you know your mobo make and model# you can usually download a manual from
the manufacturer's website.
Generally if you already have XP installed on an IDE drive and then add a
SATA drive you should have no problems.
peter

 

[Anna]

I too added a SATA drive to 2 IDE drives for extra storage. Explorer or My
Computer just sees it as another drive after it has been partitioned and
formatted.
A related question I have is would I see a performance improvement if XP
was on the SATA drive? I have Acronis True Image, would it be easy enough
to do this?

Kenny:
There's a good (but not absolute) chance that you will see a decided
improvement in performance if your new SATA HDD becomes the boot drive in
lieu of your present PATA HDD.

Since you have ATI, why don't you just clone the contents of your present
PATA boot HDD to the SATA HDD and determine if it's worthwhile to maintain
that configuration? Easy enough, no?
Anna