Wanting to connect a IDE hard drive to my new computer with SATA drive support. I purchased a Serial ATA to Ultra ATA converter card from an on-line close out house but it isn't working. I connected the card between my drive's IDE connector and a SATA port on my mother board and connected power cables to the drive and the adapter card but the drive isn't recognized. Any Ideas? Am I using the right adapter? The advertisement said "Use your IDE hard drive with any SATA port" but the box says "Serial ATA to Ultra ATA Converter." Is Ultra ATA the same thing as IDE? All the connectors fit...

>> Is Ultra ATA the same thing as IDE? << Technically there is a difference but the two terms are often used interchangeably along with UDMA. IDE refers to the physical connection of the hard disk via a 40 pin connector. Ultra ATA refers to the specification for transferring data on an IDE cable. The adaptor should work. Stuart

If you have an IDE/ATA HDD, why are you bothering with the SATA connector? Doesn't the board have the 'normal' IDE/ATA connector to plug into? You're not gonna gain anything by using the SATA port. Scrap that adapter & plug the HDD in the 'right' way using a 40-pin/80-wire IDE ribbon (or round) cable.

The drive is not recognized where? If it is recognized by your bios but it doesn't appear in My Computer or Windows Explorer, you must Partition and Format the drive before it will appear in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Ultra ATA = EIDE (Enhanced IDE). Either is sometimes called PATA (Parallel ATA) these days as opposed to SATA (Serial ATA). The 40 pin connector pinouts for IDE/EIDE/Ultra ATA are the same. There should be sufficient instructions that come with the adapter. Assorted usual stuff: If the 40 pins have no plastic shroud around them on the adapter, it is possible to install the data cable connector from the drive backwards. If the connector on one end of the data cable is installed backwards, the hard drive will not be recognized by the computer at all. The stripe on the data cable edge must be towards the same direction on both the adapter and the hard drive drive 40 pin male connectors - either the pin one end or the pin 40 end. You must have the SATA controller the adapter is connected to turned on, and the detection of the drive should be set to Auto, by the method Auto or LBA, in your bios Setup. The jumper on the drive must be set to either Master, or CS (Cable Select). If you use CS, the drive must be connected to the data cable connector on the end of the cable, not the middle one, on a three connector data cable. The data cable must be an 80 wire one in order for the drive to achieve it's maximum speed.