SATA / IDE compatibility

[Mike212]

I have just bought a new 3.6gb P4 with a SATA 250gb hard drive (I believe in future proofing...).

In my old PC I used two IDE hard drives, an 80gb for windows XP and all the software and a 60gb for data. I have been told that fitting the IDE drive may pull the motherboard down to the speed of the IDE drive and that this will effect the SATA drive. So, my questions.

Q1 / Can I daisychain the IDE data drive into the new PC with no ill effect on the speed of the SATA drive?

Q2 / Current config on the single IDE port is a DVD RW and a DVD ROM drive, so can I put three devices onto one IDE port? Maximum I have ever had before is two.

Other than dumping the data to a CD (not overly practical as the old PC blew a power supply), are there any other flashes of brilliance out there for getting all my data onto the new PC?

Any help appreciated.

[bailey]

ide port only supports 2 devices on each port.
serial drives will not affect the speed of the ide port drives or viceversa

[glc]

Temporarily disconnect the DVD-ROM drive to connect the old hard drives, one at a time, and copy your data to the new SATA drive. You could also buy an external USB hard drive housing to do it - this may be a good way to do it long term to have some kind of backup system. Here's the one I use:

http://www.apricorn.com/product_details.php?ID=332

I'd do that before I'd buy a PCI IDE controller card, which is what you would need to permanently install any IDE hard drives in that computer if your onboard IDE is full. You can swap your 2 drives in and out of that housing easily, it's 4 screws holding everything together.

[Mike212]

Thanks guys - obvious when you think about it isn't it.....

The external hard drive (already have one of those but thanks for the link) is a non starter due the old PC having gone bang, but I will use the 'extract DVD ROM and insert hard drive option this weekend.

Thanks again.