Connecting drives on a new build.

[TechGaloot]

I'm building a computer for my wife. I have an Asus M2N motherboard. This is my first build with a board having SATA connectors and the board only has one IDE connector. What I want to end up with is this: A 160gig WD SATA2 hard drive as the main hard drive; an ASUS CD-RW drive with IDE interface, and an older WD 80gig hard drive 133 Ultra-DMA as a secondary hard drive.

Here are my questions:
1.) Do I make the 2ndary HD the master or slave (or cable select) on the IDE connection? The CD-RW has to be the other one, right?

2.) Do I need a special cable to connect both the HD and the CD-RW to the IDE connector because they are going to be about 15" apart? I just checked and the cable that came with the MB in insufficient in length.

3.) While I was checking #2, I noticed the orientation of the IDE connector on the MB. Has anyone checked the Asus M2N motherboard for this connection? There is no way in heck that the cable is going to fit because the battery is less than 1/4" from the front on the connector on the MB! What were they thinking?!?! (For those that haven't seen this board, the IDE connector does not face up; it faces laterally toward the battery.)

I sure hope someone has some good advice for me. Thanks.

[Katreat]

I would spend the $32 for a new SATA burner and buy an external case for the older IDE HD so it can be used for back up Probably not what you want to hear but that is what I did when I got frustrated with my last IDE issue. With the cable length issues you are having it might be the simplist way.

If you can get the IDE cable to connect to the board, you might try leaving the extra HD out of he loop for now, connect the end of the cable to the IDE burner and set it to cable select. You can then at least get your system to boot up and load your OS.

Kat

[TechGaloot]

Thanks for the reply. I've been reading some posts over on the Asus site and I pretty much figured out that I'll need to get a new SATA burner.

It is physically impossible to connect the IDE cable to the connector on the board.

I have 2 ideas to solve my issue with the older IDe HDD. #1 - Get a SATA/IDE adapter and plug it into a SATA connector on the board. Or #2 - buy a PCI IDE Controller Card to connect to the HDD. I really need to get the old HDD in the system because it has all the old data that she needs. Which of these 2 alternatives would you suggest?

[kilgoretrout]

I'd go with the IDE controller card just because I've had experience with them and none with the ide-sata adapters. If it's just a question of copying data off the old drive, you can also look at a usb external hard drive enclosure. Apricorn ones are highly favored by the people here as they are high quality and come with a stripped down version of Acronis True Image, a very nice disk imaging application. External hard drives are really great for backups as well.

[Katreat]

I agree with Kilg on the external enclosure idea myself. I went with a Apricorn on my old HD and the software that comes with it makes it easy to transfer, back up, or even run things off the HD. USB is not the fastest connection sorce, the model I got alows for firewire which is much better if speed is important, but if you are mainly trying to recover files on the HD the speed would not be much of a factor. After transfering data you will also have a very nice back up device and external storage for files you do not need to keep on the computer.

[TechGaloot]

Yes, external drives are great for backup. As a matter of fact, I bought my wife one for Xmas. Only she didn't get around to backing up her data before her system died.

So I guess I'll go with the Controller Card.

Thanks!