IDE as Primary on SATA-only Board

[jivesph]

Hi,

Last weekend, I have bought a new motherboard - ASUS M5A78L-M-LX, without realising that I have a Primary Seagate IDE HDD and there are no IDE port on the new motherboard, only 6 SATA ports.

Before I remove everything from the casing, I have the 3 hard disks:

Primary: Seagate 80GB IDE (with OS installed)
Secondary: Western Digital 250GB SATA II (data storage)

I got IDE-to-SATA converter, attached to Seagate IDE and then to SATA1 slot on the board and then WD SATA to SATA2 slot.

But BIOS only recognize WD SATA and not Seagate IDE. (image)

As the board has 2 SATA controller - SATA1-4 and SATA5-6, I tried the following:

1. Connect Seagate IDE to SATA1 and WD SATA to SATA5 ---- only WD SATA is recognized in BIOS
2. Connect Seagate IDE to SATA5 and remove WD SATA ----- no drives are found in BIOS

In the BIOS settings:
OnChip SATA Channel ---- [Enabled]
SATA1-4 ----- [IDE]
SATA1-5 ----- [IDE]

I have few questions:

1. Is this setup possible? Seagate IDE as Primary (using converter or PCI IDE adapter) and WD SATA as secondary
2. If I use a PCI IDE adapter, is it possible to configure the Seagate IDE connected to it as primary drive? (guess, same question as above)

If I could get the BIOS to recognize Seagate IDE, I can reinstall the OS straight away but not WD SATA as I have more than 100GB of data in it.

Let me thank you in advance for spending time to read this and your valuable suggestions.

 

[unksol]

is the IDE drive set to cable select mode via the jumper? Those adapters are kind of finicky. what adapter did you get? you likely have to connection power to both the converter and the drive if you haven't.

some other options if you can't get it working:

get access to another PC and clean up your data to less than 80 gigs or use easeus todo backup to create a compressed image and put it on the 80 gig drive using an IDE to USB connector. then access it via USB after installing your OS on the SATA drive.

Using another PC and easeus partition manager shrink the data partition on the SATA drive and create a new partition in the empty space to install the OS. Then your data will be left alone when you install.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I strongly suggest that you migrate your system from the old drive to a new one, for performance reasons. Either do a complete reinstall, or take a look at this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/135077-windows-7-installation-transfer-new-computer.html .

What version of the OS are you using? If you posted that, I missed it.

 

[jivesph]

@unksol
I have the IDE HDD jumper set to Cable Select, Master or Single and Master w/ "something". Still doesn't work.

It's not an adapter but a converter -- http://site.vztec.com.my/main/4071/index.asp?productid=105807&strDetailView=H&strPD=Y&strWD=Y&AccId=9564

I have power cables connected to the converter and also the HDD.

I can't try the options until I manage to get IDE to USB cable tomorrow 🙁

@WyomingKnott
On that Seagate IDE HDD, it has Windows 7 32-bit installed.