How To Copy ATA HD To SATA HD Or Vice Versa?

DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
edited September 2006 in Hardware
I'm trying to find a way to copy an ATA drive to a SATA drive but so far I don't know how. I was looking forward to installing the ATA drive next to the SATA drive on my new machine but I came upon a dead end and just found it impossible there. Is there any way to install an ATA drive with a SATA drive or would I actually have to copy one drive to another? ATA->SATA or vise versa?? And if so, how can I do this?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2006
    Er, your question is a bit muddled.

    Are you trying to install a SATA and PATA drive in one PC? If so, there should be connectors for both in your PC. If not, buy a Adaptec controller card for the type of HDD there is no plug for.

    Are the drives installed, and are you looking to transfer data?
  • DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
    edited September 2006
    Thrax wrote:
    Er, your question is a bit muddled.

    Are you trying to install a SATA and PATA drive in one PC? If so, there should be connectors for both in your PC. If not, buy a Adaptec controller card for the type of HDD there is no plug for.

    Are the drives installed, and are you looking to transfer data?
    I guess it would be looking forward to transfering data from one hard drive to another. I asked this copy question because I've seen so-called programs around that let you make an exact copy of a hard drive. The thing is that both drives are different. My new machine (let's call it machine "A") has the new SATA drive but I can't connect the 300GB drive from my old machine to it (let's call this one "B"). If I can't make a copy of one drive to the other, then how can I transfer files from HD "B" to HD "A" ? Or more is there an adapter to allow me to do so?
  • zero-counterzero-counter Linux Lubber San Antonio Member
    edited September 2006
    So you want to transfer the OS from the ATA to the SATA drive and have it working like nothing ever happened? If so, there will be a problem with the current installation (ATA) having a problem booting with no SATA drivers installed. The old installation will need to have the SATA drivers installed in order to boot normally.

    There are ways to integrate the drivers into the current installation, but you may need to re-install.
  • DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
    edited September 2006
    I wanted to install both drives together but I couldn't as I already explained. So I was left wondering if then I could copy one drive to the other... or at least just copy files from one drive to the other.
    There are ways to integrate the drivers into the current installation, but you may need to re-install.
    If I was to decide to copy the drive(s) to transfer the OS from one drive to the other, you say I may need to re-install but the thing is that I don't have no re-install disc or such thing like that, although if I could integrate the drives and make it work, that would be a possible solution. If it would be less hassle to just transfer files than to copy the whole HD, then I would rather just take this option instead, but since both drives are different, I want to know if there's some sort of adapter to connect both drives so I can have both installed?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2006
    Why can't you install both drives together? You have plugs for both types of drives in your PC.
  • zero-counterzero-counter Linux Lubber San Antonio Member
    edited September 2006
    Thrax wrote:
    Why can't you install both drives together? You have plugs for both types of drives in your PC.
    Good question. If you set up the drives correctly in BIOS, then there should be no reason why both drives cannot coexist peacefully.
  • DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
    edited September 2006
    Thrax wrote:
    Why can't you install both drives together? You have plugs for both types of drives in your PC.
    The reason is simple. The 300GB Drive I want to add has that ATA connection (at least that's what I think it's called, the same cables that allow you to connect a dvdrw/cdrw) like this type of cable below:
    ATACable.jpg
    And the problem is that the machine only has (1) slot for these types of cables inside where the DVDRW and CDRW are connected. It's not an old machine either, it's about a year old and it's internal hard drive (the SATA) is 160GB.
  • DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
    edited September 2006
    If I can't install both together, or make an identical copy of one to the other, is there some sort of adapter to allow me to transfer files from one to the other?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited September 2006
    I have not idea if there's an adapter for an IDE ribbon cable to which to connect an SATA hard drive. You'll have to do Internet searches for "adapter+IDE+SATA". Maybe they are available. I just don't know.

    Your other options would be to use a USB external SATA enclosure and mount the SATA drive in that. And as already suggested in this thread, you could get a PCI-SATA card to which to connect the SATA drive.

    Are you sure the motherboard has no SATA connectors? That's just hard to believe that a recent motherboard would only have a single IDE slot for drives.
  • DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
    edited September 2006
    That's just hard to believe that a recent motherboard would only have a single IDE slot for drives.
    Well, it's an eMachine T5026 it's about a year old 3.06GHz 160GB SATA drive and so on. This is the machine I'm trying to add the 300GB drive too, only that the machine doesn't have no plugs/cables for this type of drive since the 300GB drive is not a SATA. It still has an extra slot or 2 for 2 additional drives I guess but for the looks of it they have to be SATA drives as well.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited September 2006
    DumNDuMMer wrote:
    Well, it's an eMachine T5026 it's about a year old 3.06GHz 160GB SATA drive and so on. This is the machine I'm trying to add the 300GB drive too, only that the machine doesn't have no plugs/cables for this type of drive since the 300GB drive is not a SATA. It still has an extra slot or 2 for 2 additional drives I guess but for the looks of it they have to be SATA drives as well.

    Does this machine have an open pci slot? If so, you can install an add-in controller card so you can add the IDE drive to your system. Here's a Rosewill pci card that will allow you to add the drive to your system and fits a pci slot. It is a RAID controller too, but will also work with a single drive in single mode. It's not too expensive either and also will give you another open IDE channel for another IDE drive later.

    BTW, it's not uncommon for machines manufactured in the last year or so to have only 1 IDE channel for only 2 IDE devices. Every Intel chipset since the i915 only have 1 IDE channel natively and the p965 chipset doesn't even have IDE capability at all.
  • DumNDuMMerDumNDuMMer New
    edited September 2006
    Thanks, this helps a lot!
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