Question on hard drives...

[pup]

my current pc has a 80G ide drive, im thinking of getting a new pc and will probably opt for 2x 500g sata drives. will i be able to use the ide with the sata's? thinking of putting os (win7) on the 80G ide

[wecpcs]

my current pc has a 80G ide drive, im thinking of getting a new pc and will probably opt for 2x 500g sata drives. will i be able to use the ide with the sata's? thinking of putting os (win7) on the 80G ide

Most new motherboards normally still normally supply one IDE connector on the motherboard in addition to a number of SATA connectors in order to attach up to two IDE devices.

Colin

[pup]

 
Ideal, 1 ide hard drive and 1 ide dvd rewriter.

cheers

[dujas]

It doesn't make sense to put the OS on what will be the slowest HD in your new PC.

[Ray]

It doesn't make sense to put the OS on what will be the slowest HD in your new PC.

I agree I would put the OS on one the Sata drives, they are much faster than IDE drives.

[Rik]

Thirded. Consider an extra, small, drive, purely to take the OS. It makes backups much easier.

[pup]

cost plus i wont back up os drive

[Ann]

A smallish partition on the SATA drive should do it.  Then you don't lose all the stuff on the other partition(s) if you have to format and reinstall the OS's partition.

[D-Dan]

Just a thought - if you are planning on getting Win 7 you won't have the choice. There's no upgrade option in Europe - so you'll have to reinstall from scratch anyway, in which case, go with the fastest drive and keep the IDE as a backup OS for when - oops, I mean "if" - things go wrong.

Steve

[Simon]

Be careful with the SATA connectors on the motherboard.  I managed to pull a couple of mine out when building my current PC, and they are impossible to get back in again, so I lost two of my six SATA connections.

[zappaDPJ]

Claw hammers are never the best tool for that job though Simon 

[Simon]

That's what I felt like using afterwards! 

[pup]

 

[pup]

Evolving the thread slightly  Would any one care to comment on this spec.

CPU:                            02029 - Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300
CPU Cooler:                   03006 - Coolermaster Hyper TX2
Motherboard:                   04022 - Asus P5KPL-AM (Intel G31 chipset, onboard video)
Memory:                           05016 - 4GB DDR2 800mhz (2x 2GB)
Hard Drives:                   06002 - 160GB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s
Second hard drive:      06004 - 500GB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive:                 07002 - 20x DVD±RW DL
Graphics card:             08032 - Onboard Intel GMA3100
Sound card:                   10001 - Onboard 7.1 Audio
Operating System:           11002 - Microsoft® Windows XP Home SP3
Software:                    12001 - Nero, PowerDVD, Avast Antivirus
Peripherals:                    14003 - Logitech Wireless keyboard and mouse
Monitors:                             15001 - 19'' Widescreen LCD
Accessories:                    16005 - 30-in-1 USB Media Card Reader
PSU:                            18011 - 500W Eagle
Case:                            17013 - EZCool H601
Warranty:                    1000 - 3 Year Bronze Warranty

I am so far behind on pc spec's, the last time i bought one the P4 was the top spec!!

EDIT (Will xp home 'see both cores of cpu and all of the 4G RAM? or will i need a 64 bit os?)

cheers

[D-Dan]

32 Bit Windows will see about 3.25 meg - you need a 64 Bit OS to use it all.

As for the spec, looks like a perfectly servicable rig - but if you want to play games or HD video, think about a dedicated Gfx card (you can pick a perfectly servicable one up for less than £50).

Steve

[pup]

cheers steve

Just for a laugh I thinking of having triple boot (i cause myself so much hassle ) xp home, win 7 rc 64 bit and linux 64 bit. i can either make 3 partitions on the 160Gb sata or (more likely) two 80Gb ot he sata and my 80Gb ide im currently using. so if a drive failes i can still use pc. the 500Gb will be data only (just got to figure out how to make all 3 os's save to data drive and not there host drives.)