Okay, I just want to get this right. I currently have a pata hard drive. I want to add another hard drive. Come to find out, i have sata connectors on my motherboard. Should i mess with using a sata hard drive with a pata. Should I scrap my old pata and just get a new sata to use by itself or should I get a new pata to use with the old one. Also, when ordering new hard drive some places give u the option to by a kit with new drive. Is that necessary, or are the kits for when building new pc?
If you are adding a hdd to your PC as storage or as another boot hdd, the types can be different. I'm not familiar with the kits you're referring to...what purpose do they serve?
If you add a Seagate SATA drive and load the tools from web, you'll get option to add new drive as main boot or additional storage which will make adding it very easy to existing hardware setup. I believe nearly all makes give the same install options anyway. Personally I only go for SATA as they are quicker full stop and extremely easy to install. Just make sure you have a decent SATA data cable and the appropriate PSU adaptor if no SATA connector is already present from PSU other than that not other kit is required at all unless you are planning on using the drive externally. I use the WD Raptors in RAID 0+1 super fast but they are extremely expensive, but I’m just after max speed, and I can’t get any more out of my MB without them. Even my second PC still has a single SATA drive rather than IDE. Either way I wouldn’t go overboard, as SATA 2 is now out and SATA 3 should be here within 2 years.
The kits I was referring to, I think r cables to hook ur drives to motherboard, screws, jumpers etc. I got a Seagate Cuda 160gb pata. I figured the sata was better but I didn't want to mess with it. I got it 4 80 bucks. Thanx 4 your help guys. Much appreciated.
Its as simple as plugging in the cable and psu to the sata...then boot the comp and make sure the bios recognize it. Then use partion magic to partition it as a logical drive. Done.
