Windows '98 on an old Dell Dimension machine became corrupt and I could not boot into Windows. Of course Dell said the only way to fix it was to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Win. I didn't want to do that plus I wanted an excuse for anew machine. I have a lot of important docs on the old hard drive. I bought a new PC, a Dell Optiplex 330. time. I'd like to get the docs from the old hard drive only my new hard drive. The old hard drive used an ATA interface but of course the new PC uses SATA-2. The new motherboard does not have an ATA socket on the motherboard of course. Is anyone aware of a way I can do this? Keep in mind I can't boot up the old machine into Windows (I can get to a A:\ prompt however. I thought there was an ATA-to-USB cable I could buy but none exists. The thought was I could hook up the old drive into a USB port on the new computer but that is not the case. I've been searching www.newegg.com but can't find such a cable. Any ideas?

There's not a cable for that, but you could use an external enclosure. http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCate...

i am falling a bit behind on new pc technology but are you sure there is no socket on the new motherboard to connect it to? I have seen some Dells that use SATA hard drives but still have one IDE socket on the motherboard for a IDE CD rom drive. I take it that when you say ATA you mean IDE/PATA. The one that has two rows of twenty pins (usually with one pin missing in the middle)

If it actually doesn't have a regular 40-pin IDE connection you could also consider an add-on ATA card. Or, using the old machine, it sounds like you could still copy off the documents via dos to floppy disks or maybe something like a zip drive.

I think from what you say that you may just have a corrupted Windows installation. You can use a live CD like Knoppix to copy the files. If you have a network you can even copy over the network. Knoppix is a 700MB download, installs and runs from one CDR. Google for Knoppix, download and burn a CDR. Boot to the CDR and Knoppix should be able to see your files if they are intact on the drive. Can burn to CDR/DVDR if there is a working burner in the computer. Or use an external or flash drive.

You can buy a powered USB hard drive enclosure for your IDE drive to get your data off from www.newegg.com There is also an powered adaptor that allows you to plug in SATA, ATA and 2.5 inch drives via USB no enclosure needed. I couldn't see one on Newegg but someone will be able to tell you where you can get one. I'm in Austarlia so can not supply names of stores in the US.

An inexpensive adapter to connect an ATA (IDE) drive to a USB port can be found here . I have a couple and they work fine.