So I have three IDE devices I want to use-- a NEC 3520A DVD burner, a Plextor Plexwriter Premium CD burner, and a Caleb UHD-144 "It" super-floppy. Having a P35 board, it only comes with one IDE channel.

So the obvious answer: spend six dollars on one of those IDE-SATA bridge cards.

However, of the three devices, the only one which it works with is the Plexwriter. The other drives, it just sits there, and eventually times out. I've poked with master/slave settings on the device, but it simply doesn't jive. I could see it not working with the superfloppy, which is admittedly a bizarre device, but the NEC drive is a bog-standard DVD burner.

If I had to pick one of the three drives to move off of IDE, the Plexwriter was the last choice... I'd rather have the DVD burner (needed for things like system installs) on a seperate channel from the superfloppy (needed primarily to cause unpredictable weirdness and impress friends)

Is this typical of the breed, or more a "you bought a cheap POS adaptor and got what you deserved?" problem.

You might also get a kick of the after-effects of trying 82 different devices on the adaptor:


Yeah, some hot glue reattached the plastic sheath, but who the hell designed the SATA cable?

I'd like more interfaces to use a plug like Ethernet has-- it's cheap and reliable.

My older asus A8n sli mobo works with them fine ,newer boards dont seem to like them much...

actually, i bought one of those before, turned out that its a IDE to SATA converter, meaning it only works to convert the IDE mobo to SATA drive, not IDE drive to SATA mobo. i was pretty pissed after finding that out.

Contrary to commanderzero's experience, I bought one of those (looked exactly the same as the one Foo posted) and it worked fine for plugging an IDE drive into a SATA port.

I've got a couple, one that came with an Abit board, not sure where the other came from. They never worked for me on any board I've tried them with. But I've got a friend that used the same Abit adapter with good results.

It's probably something to do with the controller on the drives.

Quote: Originally Posted by CommanderZero actually, i bought one of those before, turned out that its a IDE to SATA converter, meaning it only works to convert the IDE mobo to SATA drive, not IDE drive to SATA mobo. i was pretty pissed after finding that out.

Some bells have just begun to ring. I think I'm in the opposite boat. Trying to connect a WD Raptor to IDE mobo. Got an adaptor on eBay, and can't get it to work. But your post got me thinking: What if it's an adaptor to connect an IDE HD to a SATA mobo? Hmmm...doubt if I have the packaging still...

The picture on the box showed two distinct types... this one is clearly the IDE drive, SATA mobo one-- the other one is a "tall" card, all the parts "vertical" because this one would eat up too much space around the IDE socket on a motherboard which may have, say, another port next to the one being converted.

I figure the fact I'm getting ONE device to work indicates it's the right type, just something else amiss.

I was hoping by spending $6, I could avoid spending $70 to replace the optical drives with SATA substitutes.