[911pchelp]

Old and haven't yet caught up to new technology ... can I use and IDE Controller Card in a PC that only has SATA HDD's? Performance?

Can I connect an IDE DVD reader and an HDD from the same card? Additional drivers needed?

Would like to get a new Dell PC in a few weeks with Win 7 - planned on using my current HDD (which is IDE) as a 2nd HDD (storage only) and my current DVD reader (also IDE} as a 2nd optical - but new Dell's don't support IDE devices directly ... thus my questions.

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All motherboards still support a couple PCI slots so you can get a IDE controller PCI card. SATA offers superior performance.

[Digerati]

All motherboards still support a couple PCI slots so you can get a IDE controller PCI card. SATA offers superior performance.

[911pchelp]

Thanks for the quick respense.

Any special things (drivers, etc) I'll meed?

[dsenette]

also..it's still EXTREMELY rare for a computer to come without at least one IDE controller...even if all you can get installed are SATA drives at the factory...there's probably still an IDE controller on the board...

have you verified that there isn't an IDE controller at all? or just assuming because they don't offer IDE drives in the configurator

[911pchelp]

I 'talked' to Dell support (via Live Chat) and he said Dell no longer ships PC which support IDE devices.

[Digerati]

Thanks for the quick respense.

Any special things (drivers, etc) I'll meed?

If there are any, they will come with the card.

..it's still EXTREMELY rare for a computer to come without at least one IDE controller...

New motherboards put in PCs from the big makers are beginning to show up without floppy or IDE controllers. That saves Dell about $.10 per board.

When you go to ASUS or Foxconn or whoever is making their boards these days and order them in lots of 100,000, you can get them any way you want. Of course, Dell would never do anything proprietary, right?

[dsenette]

doesn't make it any less rare....and again...i haven't seen it yet (doesn't make it any less plausible)

however i've also had people tell me that they only had sata ports in their computer (or otherwise) because that's the type of drive that the computer came with so they assumed that the IDE ports didn't exists...hence the desire for verification as to whether it was proven that the machine in question (since it's not in possession) didn't already have an IDE port

[Neil Jones]

Intel branded boards are SATA only.

Dell boards (with Intel processors) are effectively Intel boards with a Dell name on them, a re-packaged BIOS and a board design that makes it impossible to use in any other case and impossible to put any other board in a Dell case.

Dell machines haven't had IDE ports for a long while now. They tend to follow the trends of Intel boards with half the back panel chopped off. Soon as Intel dropped support for PS/2 keyboards and mice, Dell "dropped" them too.

In fact Dell make effectively nothing of their own. The boards are rebranded Intel usually, the printers are repackaged HPs or Lexmarks, and the monitors are probably whatever was in stock at the time, Hanns G or whatever

[Digerati]

doesn't make it any less rare....

A couple seconds with Google shows different.

Intel branded boards are SATA only.

Starting way back with ICH8 - note in 2006 where RegisterHardware noted,

it's clear from the chipset architecture diagram, parallel ATA's not part of the story.

Dell machines haven't had IDE ports for a long while now.

Right. Going back at least 2 years that I know of.

I don't think it is all Dell boards - yet, but many if not most - and likely to be all before long.

[911pchelp]

Thank y'all

[911pchelp]

Just got an Inspiron 545 and this issue is moot. The machine doesn't have physical room for a 2nd HDD (even if the motherboard supported IDE's .. which it doesn't). Fortunately the HDD is 500GB so I can 'copy' logical drives from my old HDD to directories on the big HDD ... plus I have a 1TB external.

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