2 sata + 2 ide hdds would it work?

Robert0211 · Mar 25, 2017

Intel S5000PSL

So recently I gutted an old dell that died (rip) and formatted both of its IDE drives with an adapter on a laptop.

In my system motherboard ^^ I have 2 1TB hdds (sata) in already, Im wondering if I can add the 2 IDE hdds to the system as well. And if so would I have to mess with master/slave? im just using both for storage.
Impractical? I know, Im just bored.

Paul NZ · Mar 25, 2017

If the mobo has ide connections why not.

Sata doesnt have master and slave. Only ide does

USAFRet · Mar 25, 2017

And how large are these old IDE drives?
You're adding maybe a whole 10% to your current 2TB?

bigpinkdragon286 · Mar 25, 2017

If by IDE you mean Parallel ATA, using a 40 or 80 wire ribbon cable, yes, you need to mess with master / slave.

If the equipment you are planning to install the old drives into supports them, I don't see much harm in it, but expect the drives are going to be slow in comparison to your 1 TB HDDs.

If your equipment doesn't have a PATA connector to support the drives, you might as well weigh the cost of buying a controller card against buying a proper SATA drive, which would probably have more capacity and perform better.

Robert0211 · Mar 25, 2017

Paul NZ :

IK data doesn't xD. I was asking since I'm using 2 ide drives alongside sata. Should both be slave? One master one slave?

Paul NZ · Mar 25, 2017

Well you cant have 2 ide devices as master or slave. One has to be master and the other slave

bigpinkdragon286 · Mar 25, 2017

PATA standards haven't changed. If there are 2 drives on a single channel, one must be master, one slave, or both must be set to cable select and use a proper, "cable select" cable.

The PATA channel will not be influenced by whether you have any SATA drives or not. Just follow the old standards.

bigpinkdragon286 · Mar 25, 2017

The first time you power the machine after attaching any newly installed PATA drives, I would verify that the boot order of the machine hasn't changed in BIOS and still reflects the correct choice for primary boot drive.

Paperdoc · Mar 25, 2017

OK, first thing: Master and Slave are identifiers that apply to the two IDE device that share ONE IDE port and cable. They have absolutely NOTHING to do with SATA drives somewhere else in your system. So IF you can attach two IDE drives to ONE IDE port and cable, then YES, one must be set as the port Master (using jumpers) and plugged into the END connector on the ribbon cable. The other must be set to Slave and plugged into the middle connector.

If you have no IDE port on your mobo, you would have to add one or two. One way is to add an IDE controller card in a PCIe slot, giving you one or more ports (but you only need one to use two drives). The other would be to use two adapters, one for each IDE drive. There are some that allow you to plug into a USB port (if USB2, it would be slow). There are others that let you plug each into an unused SATA port. IF you are using adapters like that, READ the instructions that come with them. I suspect they will tell you to set both IDE drives as master, because in fact each drive will be the ONLY device using that adapter.

But still, why?

Robert0211 · Mar 27, 2017

SO I put one of the drives into the system.... and Windows promptly gave me Unreadable boot drive when I tried to start up.....

I spent the next hour recovering partitions and reverting back to a last known good state

Paperdoc · Mar 27, 2017

From that I'm not clear: did your work get the machine to boot cleanly, or is there still a problem?

Next: how is the Boot Priority set up in BIOS Setup? The message you got MIGHT indicate that it was trying to boot from the wrong drive, so check that it is set the way you want.

IF those things are working OK, I suppose your next step is to connect the second old drive. BEFORE doing that, as a test of it, DIS-connect the first old drive and just connect the second one in its place. Check whether it still works that way. THEN add the other old drive so that both are connected. Let us know how all that goes.

Robert0211 · Mar 27, 2017

Paperdoc :

It was just a funny little thin g I wanted to do, im not gonna do it anymore xD. but what happen was I plugged in the IDE drive jumped to master, I turned on PATA support in bios and set my Samsung 1 TB drive to boot, Windows tried to boot failed, and gave me a bsod with the error Inassesable_boot_drive. The only way I was able to fix it was to unplug all other HDDS and revert back to a system restore point

Paperdoc · Mar 27, 2017

When you say, "I turned on PATA support in bios", that could mean two things, and both are NOT needed.

1. MAYBE what you did was Enable some PATA or IDE port on the mobo. That might have confused the Boot Priority settings. However, since you are trying to use adapters, I really doubt your mobo has any such port to Enable.
2. More likely what you did was to change the SATA port Mode for your 1 TB HDD from AHCI mode to PATA mode. That would cause a problem. "PATA" mode or some such thing is a work-around provided in most BIOS's. It comes from the introduction of SATA drives (which really are AHCI devices) about the same time as Windows XP was released. Win XP does not have any AHCI device driver "built in", but like all previous Windows it does have a driver for PATA or IDE devices. (In Win Vista and after, the second driver (for AHCI devices) became built-in, too.) So there is a way to add an AHCI device driver to Windows XP when first installing it, using a floppy disk, and that allows you to boot from and use any SATA drive "properly". HOWEVER, many people did not have floppy drives or did not want to do it this way. So BIOS writers created the "IDE Emulation" option for a SATA port. With that chosen instead of "Native SATA" or "AHCI", the SATA port was limited to using only the command system that an IDE drive could understand, eliminating a few small advantages of the new drive design. This fooled Win XP into believing it was dealing with a real IDE device and it was entirely happy, even though the drive actually was a SATA unit.

However, that also meant that certain data entries on the drive were not the same as a real AHCI device would have. So, if your 1TB HDD was originally Partitoned, Formatted, and used an an AHCI device (I bet yours was by default), and then you tell the BIOS to change to using the IDE Emulation mode instead with its reduced abilities, it cannot read that drive under those settings. What you should have done is NOT change that - leave it as an AHCI device, as it was originally. Then when you use the IDE drive in its adapter on a SATA port, the adapter itself (and its device driver, if there is one) will take care of ensuring that that old drive CAN be used on a SATA port that is using normal AHCI device procedures.

bigpinkdragon286 · Mar 27, 2017

You have to verify the boot order of the hard drive, after it's plugged in and recognized by BIOS. BIOS may change the order after detecting new drives.

If you had multiple hard drives in the system when Windows was initially installed, some of the boot information could be on a secondary drive, because the Windows installer likes to do this for no sensibly good reason. Switching the order of drives could very well confuse your Windows boot process.

Robert0211 · Mar 27, 2017

Paperdoc :

When you say, "I turned on PATA support in bios", that could mean two things, and both are NOT needed.

1. MAYBE what you did was Enable some PATA or IDE port on the mobo. That might have confused the Boot Priority settings. However, since you are trying to use adapters, I really doubt your mobo has any such port to Enable.
2. More likely what you did was to change the SATA port Mode for your 1 TB HDD from AHCI mode to PATA mode. That would cause a problem. "PATA" mode or some such thing is a work-around provided in most BIOS's. It comes from the introduction of SATA drives (which really are AHCI devices) about the same time as Windows XP was released. Win XP does not have any AHCI device driver "built in", but like all previous Windows it does have a driver for PATA or IDE devices. (In Win Vista and after, the second driver (for AHCI devices) became built-in, too.) So there is a way to add an AHCI device driver to Windows XP when first installing it, using a floppy disk, and that allows you to boot from and use any SATA drive "properly". HOWEVER, many people did not have floppy drives or did not want to do it this way. So BIOS writers created the "IDE Emulation" option for a SATA port. With that chosen instead of "Native SATA" or "AHCI", the SATA port was limited to using only the command system that an IDE drive could understand, eliminating a few small advantages of the new drive design. This fooled Win XP into believing it was dealing with a real IDE device and it was entirely happy, even though the drive actually was a SATA unit.

However, that also meant that certain data entries on the drive were not the same as a real AHCI device would have. So, if your 1TB HDD was originally Partitoned, Formatted, and used an an AHCI device (I bet yours was by default), and then you tell the BIOS to change to using the IDE Emulation mode instead with its reduced abilities, it cannot read that drive under those settings. What you should have done is NOT change that - leave it as an AHCI device, as it was originally. Then when you use the IDE drive in its adapter on a SATA port, the adapter itself (and its device driver, if there is one) will take care of ensuring that that old drive CAN be used on a SATA port that is using normal AHCI device procedures.

umm... i never said I was using an adaptor.... my motherboard has an IDE port and I used an IDE cable

Robert0211 · Mar 27, 2017

bigpinkdragon286 :

No, thats not it, I switch hdds quite often, only storage ones not the main hdd, and it doesnt have problems booting

Paperdoc · Mar 27, 2017

Sorry, I think I got confused with another thread.

So you were using a mobo IDE port and Enabled it. Well, that STILL could have changed your boot priority by surprise. Many mobos had this odd habit. It you Enabled an IDE port that was not previously in use, it automatically changed the Boot Priority Sequence to start with the Master device on the First IDE port, even though you had it set otherwise. So, if you did not go to look for that, such a change could explain why your machine could not find a bootable device on the first specified port.

Now that you've called my attention to exactly how you were connecting your drive(s), let me review how they need to be set. I'm assuming that you would use both old IDE drives on one IDE port and cable - whether one at a time, or both simultaneously. Ideally you would be using an 80-condunctior ribbon data cable, which has connectors with 40 holes (well, 39 with one blocked off). Of course, each drive also needs its power connection.

1. The cable has three connectors. The BLUE one on one end goes into the mobo IDE port. The BLACK one on the other end goes into the Master Drive. The GREY one in the middle goes into the Slave unit (if you are using one).
2. On each drive unit, use the diagram on that drive to tell you how to set its jumpers.
3. The port/cable MUST have a port Master device. IF you add a second device, it must be the Slave.
4. As I suggest above, once you've Enabled the IDE port and connected at least one HDD there, check how the Boot Priority is set just in case it was altered on you. In your place I would ensure that the old units on the IDE port are NOT listed anywhere in the boot device list, since you only plan to use them for data.

I would try it with ONE old drive only, setting it to a Master role. Then set the other to Master and try it alone on the end connector again. If they both work, set one to Slave and plug it into the middle (Grey) connector.

Robert0211 · Mar 27, 2017

Paperdoc :

Sorry, I think I got confused with another thread.

So you were using a mobo IDE port and Enabled it. Well, that STILL could have changed your boot priority by surprise. Many mobos had this odd habit. It you Enabled an IDE port that was not previously in use, it automatically changed the Boot Priority Sequence to start with the Master device on the First IDE port, even though you had it set otherwise. So, if you did not go to look for that, such a change could explain why your machine could not find a bootable device on the first specified port.

Now that you've called my attention to exactly how you were connecting your drive(s), let me review how they need to be set. I'm assuming that you would use both old IDE drives on one IDE port and cable - whether one at a time, or both simultaneously. Ideally you would be using an 80-condunctior ribbon data cable, which has connectors with 40 holes (well, 39 with one blocked off). Of course, each drive also needs its power connection.

1. The cable has three connectors. The BLUE one on one end goes into the mobo IDE port. The BLACK one on the other end goes into the Master Drive. The GREY one in the middle goes into the Slave unit (if you are using one).
2. On each drive unit, use the diagram on that drive to tell you how to set its jumpers.
3. The port/cable MUST have a port Master device. IF you add a second device, it must be the Slave.
4. As I suggest above, once you've Enabled the IDE port and connected at least one HDD there, check how the Boot Priority is set just in case it was altered on you. In your place I would ensure that the old units on the IDE port are NOT listed anywhere in the boot device list, since you only plan to use them for data.

I would try it with ONE old drive only, setting it to a Master role. Then set the other to Master and try it alone on the end connector again. If they both work, set one to Slave and plug it into the middle (Grey) connector.

Boot priority is correct otherwise it wouldnt boot at all, both IDE drives are clean, nothing on them. the way I had it was, I have a 40 pin ribbon cable, no colors, the whole thing is grey exept for the labels saying, IDE MAIN, DRIVE 1, DRIVE 2. so I plugged MAIN into the motherboard and 1 of the drives in DRIVE 1 jumped to Master.

Paperdoc · Mar 27, 2017

That sounds right. Just check that the END connector is the one plugged into the Master drive on that port. If you do that with only one drive at a time, each of them jumpered to be a Master, does either or both of them work separately?

bigpinkdragon286 · Mar 28, 2017

If you are using the cable from the Dell, it's possible you have a "cable select" style cable. Major manufacturers such as Dell began switching their home computer lines to cable select drive configurations back in the '97 time frame. I don't know if they ever moved away from that.

If you are using a "cable select" cable, set the drives for cable select.

Some drives do not use the Master setting for a single drive configuration. Some had a jumper setting for Single.

Robert0211 · Mar 28, 2017

bigpinkdragon286 :

I believe it was a Dell from '07

Paperdoc · Mar 28, 2017

The old 40-conductor cable you refer to has no special design for using the "Cable Select" feature. That feature depends entirely on which connector on the cable you use - the end one (will be Master if the drive's jumpers are set to "CS"), or the middle one.

I may be grasping somewhat on this one. I just remembered the speed limits on 40-conductor ribbon cables. These days one uses 80-conductor cables for IDE units and the system figures out itself what communication speed the controller and drive can use. But in older systems like yours, check the BIOS Setup screens for the configuration of the IDE port. See whether it is set for a particular speed. The max these days is 133 Mb/s, but the older 40-conductor cables could only manage 66 Mb/s or less. If there's a way for you to limit the port speed in the settings, try that. Also, I'm sure that drive does not use the LBA system for access, so IF there is an option to use LBA, disable it. Addressing of disk locations is by the CHS (Cylinder / Head / Sector numbers) system, I think.

2 sata + 2 ide hdds would it work?

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