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From: SCT Technology on 22 Jan 2010 19:05
I have a Dell Dimension B110 with Windows XP Home installed. I would
like to connect a 1TB SATA hard drive using a SATA to IDE converter as
the secondary, internal drive for storage. (Primary drive is IDE and
there is no SATA support on the Dimension motherboard...therefore I'm
wanting to use the converter.) Does anyone know if this configuration
will function as I would like?

Thanks for the feedback,

Steve
From: larry moe 'n curly on 22 Jan 2010 19:59


SCT Technology wrote:
>
> I have a Dell Dimension B110 with Windows XP Home installed. I would
> like to connect a 1TB SATA hard drive using a SATA to IDE converter as
> the secondary, internal drive for storage. (Primary drive is IDE and
> there is no SATA support on the Dimension motherboard...therefore I'm
> wanting to use the converter.) Does anyone know if this configuration
> will function as I would like?

I have a converter based on a SunPlus chip (the other major chip for
converters is from JMicron), and I would not recommend it, except to
use IDE hard drives with SATA controllers. I could not get any IDE
optical drives to work with it, and SATA drives from Seagate, WD, and
Samsung would eventually cause the HDAT2 diagnostic to eventually
freeze when scanning sectors, in 20 minutes to 5 hours, with no
consistency. I did not test other HDs. No other diagnostic I tried
did that, but the failure with HDAT2 was enough to make me avoid using
SATA drives with it.

Before you buy a SATA-IDE converter, read all the reviews at NewEgg
and Amazon, especially the highly detailed ones that are negative.

I would rather buy a PCI or PCI-e SATA controller that supports SATA/
300 (also called SATA II). Cards that support only SATA/150 (SATA I)
may not recognize SATA/300 drives, and some SATA drives don't have a
jumper to select between SATA/300 and SATA/150 but instead require
that a software utility be run to change the maximum speed. That
requires having a SATA controller that properly recognizes SATA/300
drives.

From: Paul on 23 Jan 2010 01:29
SCT Technology wrote:
> I have a Dell Dimension B110 with Windows XP Home installed. I would
> like to connect a 1TB SATA hard drive using a SATA to IDE converter as
> the secondary, internal drive for storage. (Primary drive is IDE and
> there is no SATA support on the Dimension motherboard...therefore I'm
> wanting to use the converter.) Does anyone know if this configuration
> will function as I would like?
>
> Thanks for the feedback,
>
> Steve

It can. You have to consider first, whether the vintage of computer
supports drives over 137GB or not. As near as I can tell, the B110
is from 2006, and the transition year was 2003, so you're likely
OK there. Your WinXP install should be patched to at least SP1
before you connect the drive (which most users would already have
done by now). The machine likely shipped with some Service Pack
already added to the OS image, so you've likely met this already
as well.

I use an adapter here, with a 250GB SATA drive, and didn't have a problem
with it. It uses a Marvell 88SA8040. It comes with a power cable (some
other adapters don't include cables). It has a jumper for "Master" or
"Slave", and no cable select. You could jumper the other drive on the
IDE cable to take that into account. If you used two of these
adapters on the same IDE cable, one would be Master and the other Slave.
Note that once this is plugged into the IDE cable, it is hard to remove
and you have to be careful not to bend the pins on the IDE end. The SATA
end, on the other hand, is easy to work with. So when you're finished using
this, you would disconnect the ribbon cable entirely from the computer
and work on removing the adapter from the IDE cable, outside the computer.

http://www.startech.com/item-specs/IDE2SAT-25in-and-35in-40-Pin-Male-IDE-to-SATA-Adapter-Converter.aspx

There is only one review on Newegg. And three reviews on Amazon. Presumably
people are buying cheaper adapters.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200156

http://www.amazon.com/Ide-Sata-Drive-Mounted-Adapter/dp/B000ZLM9IA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264227930&sr=8-2

I haven't tested it with any SATA optical drives, because I don't own any.

In the worst case, if the drive could not be made to function adequately
using an adapter like that, it can always be placed in a USB enclosure.
Or you could add a SATA card to a PCI slot. Or a Firewire PCI card and
Firewire enclosure. Or a SATA PCI card with ESATA external port and an
ESATA enclosure. You get the basic idea. There are plenty of ways of
connecting the drive, and if you're out of PCI slots to add cards, then
any USB or Firewire connector on the computer would be an alternative. My
machine boots from USB, so having a drive in a USB enclosure doesn't
have an adverse effect on what I can do with it. YMMV on that (it
is a function of your BIOS design).

Paul
From: kony on 23 Jan 2010 13:28
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:59:06 -0800 (PST), "larry moe 'n
curly" <larrymoencurly(a)my-deja.com> wrote:

>
>
>SCT Technology wrote:
>>
>> I have a Dell Dimension B110 with Windows XP Home installed. I would
>> like to connect a 1TB SATA hard drive using a SATA to IDE converter as
>> the secondary, internal drive for storage. (Primary drive is IDE and
>> there is no SATA support on the Dimension motherboard...therefore I'm
>> wanting to use the converter.) Does anyone know if this configuration
>> will function as I would like?
>
>I have a converter based on a SunPlus chip (the other major chip for
>converters is from JMicron), and I would not recommend it, except to
>use IDE hard drives with SATA controllers. I could not get any IDE
>optical drives to work with it, and SATA drives from Seagate, WD, and
>Samsung would eventually cause the HDAT2 diagnostic to eventually
>freeze when scanning sectors, in 20 minutes to 5 hours, with no
>consistency. I did not test other HDs. No other diagnostic I tried
>did that, but the failure with HDAT2 was enough to make me avoid using
>SATA drives with it.
>
>Before you buy a SATA-IDE converter, read all the reviews at NewEgg
>and Amazon, especially the highly detailed ones that are negative.
>
>I would rather buy a PCI or PCI-e SATA controller that supports SATA/
>300 (also called SATA II). Cards that support only SATA/150 (SATA I)
>may not recognize SATA/300 drives, and some SATA drives don't have a
>jumper to select between SATA/300 and SATA/150 but instead require
>that a software utility be run to change the maximum speed. That
>requires having a SATA controller that properly recognizes SATA/300
>drives.

Even though you had problems, it might still be worth a try
to get one with a JMicron chipset. They can often be had
for a single-digit # of dollars, delivered, a small risk to
hook up and test and at such a small cost, not even worth
the bother to spend time mailing it back for a refund if it
doesn't work out.

However, I tend to agree that a PCI SATA300 controller card
is the more *universally* (some mainboard bios will have
issues with some of these cards too) compatible solution.
The system seems unlikely to have PCIe slots if it doesn't
have SATA (yet).
From: Metspitzer on 25 Jan 2010 21:22
On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:59:06 -0800 (PST), "larry moe 'n curly"
<larrymoencurly(a)my-deja.com> wrote:

>
>
>SCT Technology wrote:
>>
>> I have a Dell Dimension B110 with Windows XP Home installed. I would
>> like to connect a 1TB SATA hard drive using a SATA to IDE converter as
>> the secondary, internal drive for storage. (Primary drive is IDE and
>> there is no SATA support on the Dimension motherboard...therefore I'm
>> wanting to use the converter.) Does anyone know if this configuration
>> will function as I would like?
>
>I have a converter based on a SunPlus chip (the other major chip for
>converters is from JMicron), and I would not recommend it, except to
>use IDE hard drives with SATA controllers. I could not get any IDE
>optical drives to work with it, and SATA drives from Seagate, WD, and
>Samsung would eventually cause the HDAT2 diagnostic to eventually
>freeze when scanning sectors, in 20 minutes to 5 hours, with no
>consistency. I did not test other HDs. No other diagnostic I tried
>did that, but the failure with HDAT2 was enough to make me avoid using
>SATA drives with it.
>
>Before you buy a SATA-IDE converter, read all the reviews at NewEgg
>and Amazon, especially the highly detailed ones that are negative.
>
>I would rather buy a PCI or PCI-e SATA controller that supports SATA/
>300 (also called SATA II). Cards that support only SATA/150 (SATA I)
>may not recognize SATA/300 drives, and some SATA drives don't have a
>jumper to select between SATA/300 and SATA/150 but instead require
>that a software utility be run to change the maximum speed. That
>requires having a SATA controller that properly recognizes SATA/300
>drives.

I have wondered if you format a drive using the jumper to slow it
down, could you use the drive in another machine without the jumper?

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