I'm going crazy and hope someone could assist. I recently bought a barebones to upgrade my existing system. My challange is to keep my main IDE as primary/boot with the existing O/S (XP Pro) and add on 3 additional IDE drives using SATA coverters. The other 3 drives have data on them and are not multi-partitioned. In addition, I would like to do this (if possible) without using a RAID setup. The main reason is that I have each drive used specifically for one thing and dont want to have all combined into one then partition. I could move all data from all drives to a 1TB external drive, create the RAID setup, partition and move back, but it seems too labor intensive. Is it even possible to achieve what I am attempting?

To keep things simple; I have disconnected my CD/DVD from slave IDE, left my main IDE (120GB) as master and tried the assembly with just one additional IDE (200GB SATA convert) for now. I have tried with and without the jumper in the 200GB, checked the BIOS each time to make sure that boot will be from 120GB and still no luck. When booting, I get past the BIOS/system check (which now takes forever), I get to the XP Loading page, the bar moves left to right but never will progress to my desktop. I cannot seem to get the BIOS to recognize the SATA drive. When I go into setup; if finds the IDE but not the SATA. I would keep the drives all IDE but this MoBo only has one IDE connection and I'm tired of looking at several external drives.

Regarding the adapters, this is what they look like. They didnt come with instructions so I dont know if there is something being overlooked:
http://www.cooldrives.com/serial-ata...e-adapter.html

Any suggestions??

My Specs:

Mobo: Abit KN9 SLI
Processor: AMD Socket AM2 2.8Ghz 5400+ Dual Core
Memory: 3GB DDR2 RAM; 2x OCZ XTC Platinum, 1x Corsair
Video: Radeon x1950Pro, PCIe
Main Boot Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200, 120GB, IDE/UATA, internal
Storage Drive 1: Western Digital WD Cavier, 200GB, EIDE, internal
Storage Drive 2: IOmega 1TB, UBS2.0, external
O/S: Windows XP, SP2

those converts are real crap usually. don't you have proper sata connectors on the m/b?

Doesn't your mobo have an IDE socket that can be enabled via the BIOS? Then you can hook up that way.

Something would worry me about the SATA frig that you're trying to work. Maybe one drive (Boot) would work ...

Anyway, let's hope the IDE option works. Also have you considered whether a lifted Windows from an IDE mobo with drivers established would work properly in the SATA configuration? Another reason to try the IDE socket on your mobo.

Of course the mobo has proper SATA connectors. The adapter enables the IDE drive to be connected via a SATA cable to the SATA ports on the mobo. He wants to retain the use of his IDE/EIDE drives.

the way I understood it, he converted SATA to IDE, not vice versa.
but anyhow, both types of ide-sata adapters are crap. when my company wanted to use those for one of the customized machines, we went through 15 different kinds and manufacturers, only to end up buying extra pci controllers for sata and ide, because the adapters are so bad.

hell, even industry standart sata2sas interposers are a nightmare, and those are supposed to be used to high end server computing.

He said in his first post: My challange is to keep my main IDE as primary/boot with the existing O/S (XP Pro) and add on 3 additional IDE drives using SATA coverters.

So he's converting IDE drives to work with SATA ports.

Other than that I agree with you that these ports are not to be relied upon. I'd give it a go out of interest for one drive but would be prepared to consider the adapter as a throwaway.

Anyway, his mobo has an IDE port which he should use. OK so he doesn't get the parallel bandwidth of several SATA ports, but it'll work the old fashioned way. Then he can buy SATA drives, if he wishes, albeith with a bit of driver complexity when he ghosts the XP drive across.

I do. I have 6 SATA connectors on the MoBo but I needed the adapters to convert my IDE HDDs.

Right now, I have one IDE socket availble on my MoBo which is what I have my main IDE/Boot drive hooked up to. It works fine until I hookup the SATA plug.

[QUOTE=DimaYasny;491538]the way I understood it, he converted SATA to IDE, not vice versa.
/QUOTE]

Other way: IDE -> SATA.

as I said before - these conversion kits are usually the reason for problems. better to buy a controller