Hi, i have an Intel D865GBF mobo which has 2 IDE connectors and 2 SATA connectors. I currnetly have a 40GB IDE HDD and want to buy a 250GB HDD. But will my mobo support 250GB SATA 2 HDD? Or should i buy a 250GB IDE HDD?

yup, it will work (sata), just wont work at full sata 2 speeds.

Many SATA II HDD's now arrive with a small jumper installed on a pair of pins on the back edge of the unit. These are the only jumpers on SATA drives - there are NONE for Master / Slave like the older IDE drives, because SATA drives do not share a cable. The jumper holds the drive to original SATA communication speeds for full compatability with mobo's just like yours. If you know your mobo supports SATA II faster speeds you simply remove the jumper. In your case, leave it on, and everything is just fine.

Paperdoc is correct, with that motherboard you will need to run the drive at SATA 1.5 Gb/sec speeds. On many older motherboards that only support SATA 1.5 Gb/sec speeds, the motherboard and the hard drive will autonegotiate to a speed of 1.5 Gb/sec, so you don't actually have to do anything to the drive. However, your motherboard has a chipset (Intel i865) that does not do autonegotiation correctly. So you will have to make sure the drive is actually set to use 1.5 Gb/sec only. But be aware that different hard drive manufacturers do this differently:

- Seagate ships their drives in 1.5 Gb/sec mode, with the jumper installed, like Paperdoc described.
- Western Digital ships their drives without a jumper installed. You will need to install one before you connect it to your motherboard.
- Samsung's drives don't use jumpers, they have a software utility that can set the drive to 1.5 Gb/sec. Unfortunately, you have to be able to communicate with the drive in order run the utility, which means you would have to temporarily install the drive in a SATA 3.0 Gb/sec capable computer, run the utility to change the drive to 1.5 Gb/sec, then move the drive to your motherboard.

Other manufacturer's will usually follow one of these 3 methods. Check the manufacturer's web site to be sure.

Ok so it would be best for me to go with a Seagate 250GB SATA HDD? And will i also be able to use my current 40GB IDE drive with it parallely? Or will i have to remove the 40GB?

You can run them both together no problem. Take a look around in the BIOS Setup screens for two things.

1. There should be a place where you can specify whether or not the SATA ports are enabled. When you enable them, on some mobo's you then have some options: set up a RAID array (NOT recommended for your situation); emulate an ATA or PATA drive (the BIOS arranges to fool the OS into thinking it is dealing with just another IDE drive); or sometimes use as a plain SATA drive (this option may require that you install a SATA driver in the OS from your install disk). Choosing the PATA emulation mode is good.

2. In another spot you choose which drive is used as the boot drive. Assuming you still want to use your older 40 GB IDE drive to boot from, just make sure the BIOS is set that way. Personally, I have my system set to try booting from (in sequence): (a) the floppy drive (yes, I have one); (b) the 1st DVD / CD drive; (c) the 1st HDD; (d) no other options (my system will allow a fourth item in the list). Options (a) or (b) only get used when I put something in one of those; otherwise it falls through to the normal HDD unit to boot from.

865GBF did not have RAID or AHCI. The SATA ports are always enabled and do not overlap the IDE ports. In drive configuration you will see 4 IDE ports and 2 SATA ports.

Just plug in the drive and follow number 2 above.

OK thanks for all your suggestions