I was wondering if I've used all my primary IDE and secondary IDE connections. The problem is that because there's one HD and one DVD ROM on the secondary IDE connection, my computer is a lot slower. So I'm considering buying a PATA/SATA converter to switch one of my HD to SATA. What i'm wondering is, if I take my primary master IDE and make it into a SATA drive, will it still retain it's current drive lettering? or should I just convert one of my slave drives instead? Which takes priority in letter assigning, P-ATA or SATA?

If you convert the present interface to SATA, you will still be using the parallel interface, so you will gain nothing.

Wouldn't I eliminate having a HD and DVD/CD-RW on the same cable? Right now that's all I'm looking to accomplish.

Wesley: I did some testing about that problem on my own and a friends computer. The result was that the loss of MB/second was less than 1% with a CD/DVD-Rom or CD-RW as slave. I haven't tested the effects with a second harddrive as slave but I think it maybe more the effect of a second device than the different DMA mode. If you don't have it download the test version of nero from www.ahead.de and test the drivespeed with and without the DVD to check for yourself!

You have misdiagnosed the problem!

Umm... here are some answers. You can take your primary HDD, snap on a PATA to SATA adapter, and connect it to your SATA controller. Make sure the SATA controller driver is installed in Windows before you actually move the drive. In your BIOS, set the SATA controller as a boot device before any other hard drives. I set my boot devices like so: 1st Floppy, 2nd CD-ROMs, 3rd SATA RAID controller. This will let your machine know to look at your SATA controller for the boot drive. BTW, your OS partition will retain its drive letter (most often C:) within Windows. That's a Windows thing, not a drive position thing--your BIOS will actually number the SATA drive #3 if there are two hard drives on your IDE channels.