Further to my recent problems with a SATA 160Gig HDD, I'd like to learn more about solving these types of problems. I did not have a spare SATA HDD so I had to take out the IDE cable from the CD and connect it to a seperate IDE hard drive. I tried to daisy chain it with the CD still connected but it never recognised th IDE HDD. There were no other IDE cables available to plug the hard drive into the mobo.

When a big firm supplies a SATA HDD, does that mean it needs to be replaced with another SATA or could I have configured it to use an IDE drive somehow?

Alex

When a big firm supplies a SATA HDD, does that mean it needs to be replaced with another SATA or could I have configured it to use an IDE drive somehow?I'm not familiar with your previous problem, but I can answer this one.

OEM systems are an odd beast. Sometimes a bit of the BIOS data is put onto the hard drive so that an exact image needs to be present for the system to even boot. Other times, the image needs to be present on that same model hard drive or maybe on a hard drive of the same configuration (particular SATA port or IDE channel). Sometimes it's also a matter of the chipset - not all mobo's with SATA ports have native SATA support (the whole "Press F6" thing). Sometimes you can get around it and just use your own copy of Windows (or other OS) and use any hard drive connected to the OEM system.

For non-proprietary pre-built systems (like an Alienware or whatever) the situation is much more flexible. These companies use off-the-shelf industry standard parts, so they get the same mobo's that you can shop for online with the same BIOS'es that you would get. So if the mobo can see your hard drive, you're good to go.

Does that answer your question or did I miss something from before?