EIDE Problem

[Bill Peters]

I had intended to swap out the motherboard on my computer but the old board has 3 EIDE plugs and the new one only has !. I would seem that each of the 2 CD drives and the Hard Drive are all connected to one each of the EIDE plugs. As this is my wife's computer, I'm hoping there is a solution to this short of seppuku.

Bill

[Martoch]

Hi Bill and welcome to TechIMO!!!


(I wrote the following after thinking I saw that your new PC has 2 IDE channels)
You can certainly set up those 3 devices on the 2 IDE channels with no problem. Of course, you will put the hard drive alone on the primary IDE channel and use a master/slave setup on for the CD drives - try putting both of the jumpers on the back of the CD drives on the cable select (CS) position and attaching the more powerful CD drive (burner vs just a reader) on the master position of the IDE cable (the end of the cable). If CS doesn't work, set the drive on the end to Master and the other drive to Slave.

[Atomic Rooster]

Well, one solution you have is to connect the hard drive as master on the end of the IDE cable, and only install one of the CD drives as slave on the secondary connector on the IDE cable.


Here's another solution. You can get an IDE to SATA adapter and connect the hard drive to an available SATA connector, and then you can install the two CD drives to the IDE controller.

SABRENT IDE Ultra ATA-100/133 to SATA Mini Converter

[stroyal]

You could also get a PCI expantion card like these
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Hard Drives,Controllers / RAID Cards,ATA,