can a sata hard drive use an adapter to fit ata/ide

Solution
You can buy an add-on card that supports SATA (pci/pcie), or you can get an external enclosure and use it via USB. Both are only data.

Basically that computer is absolute garbage now, it had a chip that was slow as dirt for it's time, and hasn't aged well since then. Full replacement is a better idea than sinking any money (even a single dollar) into it.
You can buy an add-on card that supports SATA (pci/pcie), or you can get an external enclosure and use it via USB. Both are only data.

Basically that computer is absolute garbage now, it had a chip that was slow as dirt for it's time, and hasn't aged well since then. Full replacement is a better idea than sinking any money (even a single dollar) into it.
 
Solution