ATA HD help?

Question

HI; im looking to update my sons pc with a new one...the old pc has two ATA drives loaded with his college stuff...engineering info files/ projects etc.. found an inspiron 531 i was going to buy...but if its like my XPS. theres no way to put an ATA drive on these newer motherboards..they require ALL SATA devices including the cd/dvd drives... soo is there a way to use the old ATA drives on this model without just transferring all the data over?. if this question has been answered before..sorry in advance..   Thanks

ejn63 · Answer

You can't use the drives as boot devices anyway - you can put the drives into external cases and attach them by USB to copy over the data you need from the old system, but everything else (programs) would need to be loaded onto the new system's hard drive anyway, even if you were to buy a system that still had EIDE (PATA) drive support.

mombodog · Answer

Or you can use this IDE to Sata converter to install that ide drive in the new PC   http://www.datoptic.com/cgi-bin/web.cgi?product=SATA-IC2&detail=yes   This is the only brand of this type of convertor I will recommend, most do not work, these do.

EmKu · Answer

I don't know pill2u has read 3 replies above or not yet cause I don't see any pill2u's comments. Here is another thought that could get your new system working with 2 old ATA HDD. Simply use an external ATA HDD Box, interactive via USB port. It has an own power supply cable ;)

pill2u · Answer

Thanks fir the good ideas... at least ive an additional option or two now....by the way  to transfer data..is it a serial cable i use?? and does windows vista have that files and settings transfer program included like xp used to?

EmKu · Answer

I'm not sure I can see what you mean but Vista's still working well with ATA HDD ;)

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ATA HD help?

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