Member Avatar for Crazy_M

Ok, I have all my hardware stuff hooked up to standard ide cables

ide-1 has my hardrive to my cd-rom
ide - 2 has my cd-rw and my 2nd cd-rom

my question is, can i put a 2nd hard drive on SATA 1 or SATA 2 ? and have it as a 2nd drive? which exactly do i need to do?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by BTRenegade

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Short answer: yes — most motherboards will let you run both IDE channels and both onboard SATA ports at the same time, but there are a few practical things to check so the new drive actually works the way you expect.

Checklist to add a SATA drive

  • Power down, attach the SATA data cable to an open SATA header and the SATA power plug from the PSU (use a Molex->SATA adapter only if you must).
  • Leave your IDE devices as they are (master/slave or cable‑select) — no change for SATA.
  • Boot into BIOS/Setup and verify the SATA controller is enabled and that the new drive is detected. Set SATA mode (IDE/Legacy, AHCI, or RAID) depending on whether you need advanced features; AHCI gives NCQ but older OS installs may need drivers.
  • In Windows use Disk Management (Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management) to initialize, partition and format a brand new drive.

Important notes and pitfalls

  • SATA is point‑to‑point: one drive per SATA port (no masters/slaves).
  • Some motherboards have “shared resources” or extra controller chips; certain SATA ports may be disabled or require a driver if an add‑on controller is used — check the board manual. was right to point you at the manual.
  • If you plan to boot from a new SATA drive, make sure the BIOS can boot from that controller mode or have the correct mass‑storage driver available during OS install (older Windows versions often needed the driver via F6).

Troubleshooting

  • If the drive does not appear: try a different SATA cable/port, confirm the power connector, enable the controller in BIOS, and update the motherboard BIOS/drivers.
  • For your optical drives: you can keep multiple CD drives on IDE channels, but using the burner and a CD-ROM on one IDE cable requires proper master/slave settings or cable‑select and may limit transfer modes.

This covers the usual issues not discussed in depth earlier; check the motherboard manual first, then plug the SATA drive in and the BIOS should tell you what else (if anything) needs changing.

Recommended Answers

All 12 Replies

Member Avatar for Puckdropper

You've got three CD-ROM drives? Why?

You can put a second drive on either chain (ide1 or ide2), but you have to remove one of the drives to do it. Unlike SCSI, IDE only supports 2 devices on a chain.

Member Avatar for Catweazle

1. You can only use SATA hard drives with SATA1 and SATA2.

2. You have too many CD drives. You only need the CDRW. Even having a CD-ROM in addition to that is a 'luxury', useful only for copying CDs 'on the fly'. (I never copy CDs that way, you get better copies if you do both Read and Write operations with the burner ;))

IDE1 should have your system hard drive as Master and your second hard drive as Slave. IDE2 should have your burner as Master, and your CD-ROM as slave if you decide to include it.

Member Avatar for Crazy_M

ok, maybe my question was misunderstood.. i got 2 standard ide slots , and i have 2 standard sata slots, i want my 2 cdrom drives ide 2, and i want my hard drive on ide 1 with my other cd-rom, i want to know if i can put a 2nd hard drive on a sata 1 slot, since they arnt being used... can i do that?

Member Avatar for Killer_Typo

ok, maybe my question was misunderstood.. i got 2 standard ide slots , and i have 2 standard sata slots, i want my 2 cdrom drives ide 2, and i want my hard drive on ide 1 with my other cd-rom, i want to know if i can put a 2nd hard drive on a sata 1 slot, since they arnt being used... can i do that?

your question was answered, it was answerd by catweazle, you can only put a satadrive on a sata cable.

Member Avatar for Crazy_M

i want to know if u can run ide 1 ide 2 sata 1 and sata 2 all at the same time

Member Avatar for Puckdropper

Try it and see. Hook everything up correctly, and the worst that can happen is it won't work.

Member Avatar for Crazy_M

execpt i wont have any use for a new drive

Member Avatar for Killer_Typo

execpt i wont have any use for a new drive

then why ask if it will work if you dont need the use for a new drive?

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Yes. it will.

Could you please tell us why on Earth you need two CD-ROMs and a CD burner as well? I would seriously like to know, as I've never come across a situation that would require such a configuration.

Member Avatar for Crazy_M

thanks cat, finaly someone doesnt sound stupid trying to be a smart*** and doing a s**** job at it..

commented: being a jerk about not getting the answers you want will get you know where on this board. +0
Member Avatar for Catweazle

Crazy_M, that criticism of people who have answered is unwarranted.

You've not stated your question clearly to start with, the question itself, about a configuration which would need an additional (SATA) drive has been followed by a comment that you have no need for an extra drive, and in any case the answer was given in an early post in the topic, as has been mentioned.

Further to that, my own quite seriously put question hasn't been answered by yourself anyway.

finaly someone doesnt sound stupid trying to be a smart*** and doing a s**** job at it.

It could be claimed that there has only really been one person doing that in the discussion.

commented: stood up for the fact that he was out of line and still put up with him long enough to get him the info he wanted. a perfect example of a good mod. +1
Member Avatar for BTRenegade

Crazy-M

Don't understand why no-one read your question, it was pretty straight forward and specific.

In answer, you can add a SATA drive when you have both your IDE cables in use, providing
1. Your motherboard allows it, this will be confirmed in the manual. I have a Asus P4P800S and this says in the manual that you can add a SATA drive when all IDE ports are full.
2. The manual also specifies that it will only work if you are using Win2K or Win XP providing the XP has at least SP1 installed.

Hope this answers the question.

Cheers

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