XPS 600--adding an IDE drive.

Question

I have an XPS 600 on order with a DVDROM and DVDRW drive, plus 2 SATA HD's. I'd like to add one of my IDE drives from my old Dim 4550 to this machine as it has all my digital photos archived on it.

It looks like my 2 options are either an ATA controller card, or a SATA to IDE adapter. Has anyone tried any of these adapters? Some of the reviews on Newegg look good, but I'd like to make sure they work ok with the XPS.

Any recommendations/experience with a particular ATA controller card?

Of course, there's always the USB option.....

Thanks,
Dave

Georgia_Rebel · Answer

you could transfer data from the ide to a sata drive......you could unplug the cd/dvd drive and use that port for the ide drive long enough to transfer the data

CTskydiver · Answer

I use a PCI adapter card from Maxtor/Promise which came with one of my (retail purchased) hard drives - I have 5 hard drives in my XPS 600 (plus a DVD burner and media card reader). The current PCI card has one IDE channel (2 x ATA-133 devices) and two SATA-150 channels. My previous card (used in my Dim 8250) was another Maxtor/Promise that had 2 IDE channels (4 x ATA-100) and which also came with one of the hard drives.

I'm using Molex/4 pin y-adapters (splitters) to power the IDE hard drives because I couldn't find any SATA power > PATA power adapters readily available locally; and I don't seem to be having any problems ... also using rounded-IDE cables instead of the stock ribbon cables - mostly because of their extended length (1 at 18" and 1 at 36", I think, respectively).

Georgia_Rebel · Answer

how did you mount the extra 2 drives....dell messed up with their drve cage..it should have  accomadated 4 hard drives

CTskydiver · Answer

I mounted one where the floppy was supposed to go and the other in the 3rd 5.25' bay.

Georgia_Rebel · Answer

I use a floppy so thats out......as soon as I build or buy another system I will gut this xps and modify it....I have almost got everything I need to build the case scoop cooling system......I have built the shell...got the power trans former....my supplier was able to get me one that is less than 2" square...it will work nicely....still looking for the fans right now...I hooked up some of my plc cabinet fans to the pwr converter I got and to the potentiometer....and you can fine tune then way down 20 rpms and up to 2200 rpms...they are 12 vdc fans but are 4 inches square....I still need a small temp readout for 2 type k or type j thermalcouples...I have both types in my office......I may buy a asus motherboard and another pwr supply and see if I can come up with a way to make them both work inside this case......when I am done the only thing from dell will be the case....dvd burner and the floppy....I do like the dell xps case......

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Message Edited by Georgia_Rebel on 10-30-2005 03:54 PM

CTskydiver · Answer

Why floppies? Thumb drives are cheap, and hold at least 100x as much. And they're very fast. Message Edited by CTskydiver on 10-30-2005 04:28 PM

davejohn · Answer

Thanks for the advice re: the IDE controller cards. While shopping around I stumbled across a nice USB enclosure on sale at Newegg with free shipping. I knew I could temporarily hook the drive up using one of the optical connectors to transfer the files over and probably would have ended up doing that. But this way I can have the photos stored offline, and use the drive with my laptop too.

Dave

CTskydiver · Answer

Here are some photos of the inside of my XPS 600 with 5 hard drives installed (including 3 IDE (PATA) hard drives), in addition to a DVD burner and internal media card reader:

Note the (blue) after-market rounded IDE cables (required for their length) and the two white molex Y-adapters (required to power the IDE drives).

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Front drive bay covers...

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Wilbur747 · Answer

I too have an XPS 600 with 2 hard drives and RAID 0 configuration set from the factory. I want to install my old IDE hard drive from my old Gateway so I can transfer files over to my new computer. I used the MS Files Tranfer utililty, and it locked up the old computer. I bought IntelliMover and it did the same. All I want to do is be able to read my old HD and transfer files from the old to the new.

I have an IDE to ATA interface card attached to the old IDE HD so I can attach it to the Del ATA motherboard. The problem is that once installed, my new computer won't even go through the boot process. It hangs on the MS window and will not go any farther.

I Bought Dell because of problems with Gateway, but at least with my old Gateway I could install an old hard drive and access it with no problems.

PLAINLY AND SIMPLY, (read: no techno babble) how do I set up my new Dell XPS so I can get it to read the old hard drive so I can trans fer file from old to new?

With a Dell, do I need to set the old HD jumpers to slave or single? How must the setup menu be set?...etc, etc.

Basically, I want my new Dell to read the old drive so I can transfer files to the new drives.

davejohn · Answer

After researching those IDE to SATA adapters it looks like they can be very flakey. Some will work with certain chipsets, some not.

If all you want to do is transfer the files you can unhook one of your CD/DVD drives, temporarily hook the IDE HD to that connection and transfer the files.

I went with a USB enclosure for the old drive so I can also use it to archive my digital pics. I went with this one from Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145363

It's worked very well. It had free shipping when I got it last week.

Dave

Storage, Drives & Media

XPS 600--adding an IDE drive.

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