Asus P5wdg2 Cdrom

That motherboard supports both PATA and SATA, if there is some confusion as to which you have look at this article for the differences.

If I have misunderstood your post, please provide more details, you haven't provided a very much information to go on.

That motherboard supports both PATA and SATA, if there is some confusion as to which you have look at this article for the differences.

If I have misunderstood your post, please provide more details, you haven't provided a very much information to go on.

Connector is the standard PATA ribbon cable / Insulation Displacement 40 contact type with one middle pin blocked. This cable came with the P5WDG2 motherboard kit and says "CDROM Cable."

BTW -- I use both PATA and SATA, but mostly SATA. Previous motherboard in that chassis was an ASUS PSCH-SR/SATA. There are 4 SATA hard drives, 2 PATA removable Hard drives, a Zip drive, a CDROM and an AT style floppy.

BTW -- I use both PATA and SATA, but mostly SATA. Previous motherboard in that chassis was an ASUS PSCH-SR/SATA. There are 4 SATA hard drives, 2 PATA removable Hard drives, a Zip drive, a CDROM and an AT style floppy. The floppy was a special 3.5 inch AT compatible from Irvine Data Systems.

P.S.S. I forgot to mention -- I first built that machine many years ago with an ASUS P4C800E. Then upgraded to PSCH-SR/SATA. Now I am upgrading with the P5WDG2. CPU is an INTEL Core 2 Quad QX6700 "Kentsfield." There are 4 SATA hard drives, an ASUS EN7600GS graphics card.

Now it makes sense. That motherboard only has one IDE socket, and you have plugged two PATA hdds in there and now don't have any place to plug in your CD-ROM.

My suggestion? If you have four SATA hdds then you should have enough space to transfer the information from the PATA drives and eliminate the old drives. Or you could install them in an exterior enclosure and connect them via a USB port. Extension cards are going to make the speed of the optical drive dependent on the PCI bus speed.

Thanks Doc. I forgot to mention that I had a zip drive and two removable hard drivces in that setup as well. I'll have to do without them for a while. That machine was more of a beast than I realized; but then, I built it about ten years ago when my mind was really sharp.

Thanks again Doc! I found this neat adapter that will solve my probelm. at:

http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspxedp=3291945

That link is either temporarily down or out of date.

Glad to hear that you found a solution, there are several options in this case.

Glad to hear that you found a solution, there are several options in this case.

I would appreciate it if you would elaborate the options --
Thanks, Spi

I have found a SATA cdrom (Also very inexpensive ~ $20), namely the ASUS|DVD-E616A3T. Has anyone used this to install Win XP from CDROM?

I can't see where it would be any problem, it's tried and true technology.

OK -- Thanks for the encouragement. I just hope that Windows XP or VISTA recognizes the CD and will boot from it! I have never tried to install Windows, booting from an External SATA CDROM before.

"I can't see where it would be any problem, it's tried and true technology."

I forgot to mention that the only place I can attach the CDROM on the P5WDG2 motherboard is on an External SATA port as all the internal ones are all used with hard drives.

"I can't see where it would be any problem, it's tried and true technology."

Which are you stating as being "tried and true technology" --

1) SATA
2) CDROM
3) SATA CDROM
4) Booting VISTA from an SATA CDROM

I can't seem to get a response. Let me try again:

1) Has anyone ever used a SATA CDROM?
2) Has anyone ever booted Windows from an SATA CDROM?

A CD-ROM is a CD-ROM whether it SATA or not.

A CD-ROM is a CD-ROM whether it SATA or not.

I quite agree! The question is not an existensial one! I was asking whether or not Windows XP will recognize it and load the windows CD from it. There are only certain qualified devices which the Windows XP Installer will recognize.