Hard Drives Just a question for all the geeks going to buy a new hard drive, whats the difference between IDE, ATA and SATA I can use computers but know bugger all about them cheers peeps
there's 2 types : IDE and Serial ATA (SATA) until recently, most PC's used IDE, now recent motherboard have SATA controllers aswell as IDE. even MORE recent PC's ONLY have SATA. So, find out what your mobo supports and but accordingly.
Also to point out that obviously the two are not interchangable and have completely different connections
you can get adapter boards to convert SATA drives to IDE, but they're a right faff on and I wouldn't recommend it. if you're unsure, google "everest home", download it and have a look at your motherboard spec, that should tell you what it supports. Most manufactured within the last five years support both, however MoS is right in his infinite wisdom and support for IDE is starting to get dropped on boards produced in the last year.
I was too. I had to get an external hdd enclosure to put my ide drive in so I could get all my files from my old pc.
Well an external hdd enclosure can be bought for about the same but then I noticed the hdd media player so i got that instead. I suppose I'm better off now because of the lack of IDE support eh
