My computer has 2 hds, Primary master and slave, and 2 dvd drives, Secondary master and slave. I want to know if i can install a sata hd in it? I am sure my mobo support serial ata but my conern is that my drives are full in primary and secondary slots.

If you have two IDE slots and they are full and your motherboard supports SATA then you can install SATA. Primary and Secondary refer to ATA drives. Nothing to do with SATA. You need to read your motherboard manual very carefully. Stuart

or just install the sata and 1 ATA, then copy the ATA over to the SATA and do the same with other ATA drive then yank the old ATA drives. now yer all set. or if you cannot have a SATA and a ATA installed and working together. install SATA and buy an external enclosure and make a External HD out of yer other ATA HD(better one of course). then pull all the info off of the ATA drives unto the SATA via your External HD connection. then sell yer remaining HD on ebay or something.

Why are you sure that your MB SATA HDs? If it does support SATA HDs you should be able to install two additional SATA HDs while keeping all existing drives.

To connect SATA drives to your motherboard you need SATA connectors on it. They don't fit to the old ATA connectors as the SATA connectors are a lot smaller. There are adapters to connect ATA drives to SATA but I'm not sure about the other way around. The second way is to install a SATA controller card. That should have at least 4 SATA connectors you can use. But you need a free pci or pcie slot for that card. And make sure the card you buy comes with linux drivers as I see you work with Linux!

you could always just buy a pci controller card to add more ide hard drives as well

I had a similar problem, too much data & not enough drives. I bought a PATA to SATA converter for about £13.00 (BP) and solved that problem since it allowed me to have a fourth HDD on the system & keep my DVD writer. It does mean I shall probably buy SATA in future. Regards. Bob Mitchell.