PATA drive connecting to SATA motherboard?

[Daftpanzer]

I have a new (Vista) computer, and I was hoping to transfer a secondary HD from my old computer. Not only that, but I want to install XP on that drive, to give a choice of which OS to boot with, without messing about with partitions (which I have a phobia of). The drive is quite recent, it is PATA but 250 gb, and I don't want to give up on it.

However, the new PC is all fancy red SATA stuff inside. There are no PATA / IDE ports.

So, I've been looking at those adapter things that plug into the back of a PATA drive and allow it to connect to SATA connections. Some of them seem quite smart, and cheap, and small. However, after searching online I've seen all kinds of problems people have had

I was wondering if anyone here has used one of these converters to get an old PATA drive working, and/or if you think it could work reliably, even as a bootable drive with an OS on it?

If not, is partitioning as scary as I think it is? I don't particularly want to format any drives right now. And I seem to remember partitioning being a big problem for installing games, at least in the mid-late 90's

Thanks for any advice!

 

[GoodGame]

I have. This one worked fine for me:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812107112
I forget if it worked for both my HD and CDROM, or if I just used it the CDROM. At worst, check out the similar products on newegg for consistently good reviews.

Partitioning is very unscary if you do it on a drive that you completely format.

 

[warpus]

My older PC was a beast; 5 harddrives and 2 optical drives. (on a side-note, I am bringing it back to life!)

3 of the drives were connected to a PCI IDE controller. It was pretty cheap, and worked very well.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to boot off a drive connected to one of those, but that probably depends on your BIOS.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Thanks for your advice! I had a look at that converter. The reviews seems a bit hit-and-miss, but its the same for others I've looked at. I think I will attempt a two-drive setup before resorting to partitioning.

@warpus, Im hoping to avoid any PCI IDE cards. My motherboard as 0 IDE connections, so I don't know if it will support any IDE stuff at all?

What I will try is one of those gadgets that actually attaches into the back of the IDE drive, and has SATA port on the other side.

 

[warpus]

Sure, it should support a PCI IDE card. (in theory!)

The solution you're going with seems cheaper (I think)

 

[soul_warrior]

partitioning is easy.
if you have Partition Magic, it will almost do it on its own.

after that you will just have to modify your boot.ini file, after the secondary OS install, to allow for a choice of OSs.
its easy as well.

also, you might check if your PC will support booting from a USB connection - just buy a HD mobile case.

personally i have a dislike to adding those gizmos.
i fear they will fail on me....
but they ARE very handy when in need of urgent tools.