1 ide slot and 4 ide components ( 2 hdds and 2 dvd burners)

[dt]

well i am having trouble finding an actual ide to sata converter. i would like to use the ide slot i have now for the 2 dvd burners and have some *magical* slot appear to allow my drives to become sata since i dont have another ide slot.

what i have now:

1X 100gb seagate
1x 300gb maxtor diamond
2 X 1 ide raid controllers ( something i really dont need unless i use my 2 drives for raid ... 1 from a chinese man and one from the store )
1 ide to sata converter ( which isnt what i wanted... but i could use it if i had a 2 ide to sata converters for my 2 ide dvd burners )
2 dvd burners.

 

[dmk82]

if you have an open pci slot just buy an ide controller card.

 

[dt]

if you have an open pci slot just buy an ide controller card.

i bought an ide "controller" card and they turn out to be raid controllers!

Your best bet would be to get an SATA drive. IDE HDD are a thing of the past now. Evern Optical drives are starting to go SATA. If you have important files on the IDE drives you can connect them one at a time on the IDE cable with one of the optical drives to make the trancfer. If your trying to carry over an install of windows from the old system it isn't going to work. You will have to performa fresh install of windows. Otherwise you will have tuns of problems.

every thing i am getting now is just sata. my 100gb seagate drive will be going to my parents computer ( since when i built my computer i took out a 300gb ide maxtor drive that was a usb drive ). I lost the usb stuff which is somewhere in my house.

the only reason i am using both of these ide hdd's is because my sata drive isnt working and i need something to get online. The 100gb drive will be gone as soon as my sata drive is fixed or if i go to the computer place and get another one while i send the one i have by RMA.

basically i need something to carry me over for now. its either an extra ide slot or converting the hdds with a sata ide to sata converter ( by hooking it on the hdd's).

things i dont need:

1 dvd burner ( giving this old ide burner to my parents. its an old 4x burner.

 

[dt]

You can run a single optical and a single HDD on the same IDE chanel. That isn't a problem. It should hold you over as long as you need it.

yeah, thats what i am doing right now.

any ideas on what i should do with my 300gb ide maxtor drive when i get some hdd's and put them in raid 5?

 

[nobly]

You can always buy an enclosure and turn your old HDD's into externals. Good for backups too.

 

[dt]

You can always buy an enclosure and turn your old HDD's into externals. Good for backups too.

haha, thats what my drives were before!

i guess its safe to keep them that way.

i am having a 320gb seagate in the rma process and while its in the rma process i need another drive.

should i get the same one since i am planning on going raid 5 when i collect all my sata drives?

also is it a wise thing to get the exact same drives for raid 5?

 

[nobly]

I think it depends on your controller, but in theory, having all of the same drive and same model in RAID 5 is the best.
Now its not necessary, but performance-wise its supposed to be better since all of the drives will have the 'same' or close to same seek times, etc.

Anyone feel free to correct me.

 

[elpresidente2075]

This should get you started:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=ide+sata&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

I own and use this one on my main windows installation:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998001

Those things usually work best with hard disks, in my experience ODDs don't work very often with them. This turns your IDE drives into SATA drives. Now, you'll only have the maximum bandwidth of the old IDE drive, but it'll have the SATA interface so you can connect them to your motherboard's SATA controller.

I hope that's what you were asking...