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Serial ATA and Standard Ribbon Cable


BigPaPa

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Is their anyway to install a second Hard drive on my PC when the original one is a Serial ATA drive and the second one i want to install is an old Standard Ribbon cable plug.

I'm trying to recover some files off this old hard drive.

There is a spot on the Motherboard for the place where a a ribbon cable would plug in for a hard drive and i have an extra old style power plug in.

If i just plugged a ribbon cable in would it be able to handle both types at the same time?

Could i set up a Scenario to dual boot it?

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Here's an idea, just get an IDE enclosure and make it into an external hard drive. They cost like 20 bucks...you can try the USB to IDE but if you're gonna use it alot like that heat will build up...the enclousure is alluminum so i'll keep it a bit cooler...look for Vantec enclousure. Try Tiger Direct..they are the best:)..plus i work there.

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If you already have an IDE slot on the motherboard, then there's not too many reasons why you shouldn't be able to use that as well as the SATA drive at the same time. With the SATA drive connected, connect your IDE hard drive up using an IDE cable and boot the system. The extra drive should show in My Computer, unless it is damaged.

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Thats what im gonna try first i have an old IDE cable lying around somewhere. The only thing i am unsure of is if it will pick it up as the Main or the Slave, assuming it doesn't give me any problems.

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That depends on the jumper on the drive itself. On the label on the drive, there is quite often a guide on what the jumper should be for mater, slave, and cable select. If not, look up the documentation and you can find it there.

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If you already have an IDE slot on the motherboard, then there's not too many reasons why you shouldn't be able to use that as well as the SATA drive at the same time. With the SATA drive connected, connect your IDE hard drive up using an IDE cable and boot the system. The extra drive should show in My Computer, unless it is damaged.

You can damage you drives if you hook both up at the same time, or so claims my Dell manual.

But my A-Bit MOBO allows both with no issues

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Gotta love Dell's overly-sensitive safety precautions. :)

Well, despite working for Dell, I've done it in the past and haven't had any issues. I'll ask a couple of guys at work though, see if they've had any problems with doing it.

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Ill probably jsut get some sort of IDE to usb cable. I also need one that works for the 3.5 laptop hard disks. Hopefully i can find one the will do both for me.

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Quite a few that I've seen have interchangable interposers, so you can change it to any drive or connection - IDE, 2.5" or 3.5" HDDs, FireWire etc.

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