New Motherboards and old Hard drives

M

Mystery Man

New Member
I am in the process of upgrading a computer for someone (as cheaply as possible) who currently has three old (non-SATA) Hard drives.

It appears that most modern motherboards only seem to have one socket in which to plug older (ATA?) drives, and since there is a limit of two drives per socket, and of those one must be used for a CD or DVD drive, it appears impossible to plug in more than one Hard Drive.

Are there any inexpensive Socket 775 Motherboards available that still have two ATA sockets, or there another obvious solution that I am overlooking?

Thanks for any help.
 
Something puzzles me - if it's the norm now for motherboards to only have one IDE socket, therefore limiting only two drives to be connected that way, and those taken up by a CD and a DVD drive, it is simply assumed that no-one uses IDE hard drives these days? You'd think they'd be more provision for legacy devices.
 
I had the same problem recently. Blew my mind that there was only one IDE hookup. I have 2 DVD drives and an IDE HDD. Got a new mobo and processor, and I couldnt even hook everything up.
You are about right about no one using them anymore. Manufactures are trying to phase them out. You seen the prices on SATA drives vs the same capacity IDE? They are almost equal. Everyone building a new rig, or upgrading the HDD, gets a SATA drive kuz they are faster and the same price almost. aSc1@3, got the right idea. Just get you one of those converters and you'll be good, there only 15 bucks. you can get em on ebay for $15 with free shipping. Thats the way to go.
 
Yes, if I was building a new computer for myself, and hadn't already moved to SATA drives, I'd certainly chaneg to SATA drives then, but it's still very handy to be able to slot in an old drive, and as I said if you have a CD and a DVD drive, then there isn't even room for one IDE drive.

But I guess that's the PC world for you, things are declared obsolete in no time at all !
 
I recently upgraded and my motherboard has 2 IDE slots, didn't feel like getting a SATA DVD writer since my current one (IDE) is working just fine. Some manufacturers do offer more support for older technology than others. Not one of the best brands but ASRock even had a motherboard which offered not only support for socket 939 and AM2 but also AGP and PCI-E. It was at the very least a nice gesture as some may not be able to afford to upgrade all parts at once.
 
Are SATA CD and DVD drives available? If not then surely boards should still ideally have at least 2 IDE sockets - it can't add much to the cost, surely? I know that you can connect two drives to one IDE channel, but even so it'd be nice to have at least one spare, for connection of old hard drives etc.
 
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