# Can a sata drive work with an ide motherboard?



## Novice2000

I have an older computer that I bought right before sata drives came out.  I ordered a dvd/cd burner from the internet.  Stupid me didn't even take into consideration if it was an ide drive.  It isn't, it is a sata drive and motherboard doesn't support sata, only ide.  Is there anyway I can make a sata drive work with a non-sata motherboard?  Does anyone sell adapter cables for this?  I asked best buy and radio shack, but they don't carry anything like that.  I looked on newegg and tigerdirect, but can't seem to find anything, unless I'm missing something.  Not only don't I want to go through the hassle of returning it and buying an ide drive, but this drive only cost like $25.  The cheapest ide on newegg's site, where I bought this one, is like $50 and I don't think this is worth it for a computer this old.  So do some type of adapter cables exist for making this work, and if so, where do I find them?


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## Fatback

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232004 here you go I have used this a couple of times on older computers works great. Don't forget to buy a sata cable and make sure you have a 4 pin molex free to plug in for power.


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## StrangleHold

Dont buy that, its backward from what you need.


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## Fatback

StrangleHold said:


> Dont buy that, its backward from what you need.



How do you get that it converts IDE to Sata I have used it before It works fine I wouldn't use it on a hard drive but for a CD/DVD drive it works fine.


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## Novice2000

Fatback said:


> How do you get that it converts IDE to Sata I have used it before It works fine I wouldn't use it on a hard drive but for a CD/DVD drive it works fine.



He's right.  I have a sata dvd drive that I need to hook up to a motherboard that only has ide connections.  I actually need the opposite of what you showed.  Does anything like that exist?


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## StrangleHold

Fatback said:


> How do you get that it converts IDE to Sata I have used it before It works fine I wouldn't use it on a hard drive but for a CD/DVD drive it works fine.


 
He has a SATA drive with only IDE ports on the board. Your link is the other way around. A IDE drive to a SATA port.

Something like this would work. It plugs into the back of a SATA drive, with regular IDE and molex conections on the other side to use a IDE port.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812226024


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## Novice2000

StrangleHold said:


> He has a SATA drive with only IDE ports on the board. Your link is the other way around. A IDE drive to a SATA port.
> 
> Something like this would work. It plugs into the back of a SATA drive, with regular IDE and molex conections on the other side to use a IDE port.
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812226024



That looks like what I need.  Thanks StrangleHold.


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## Fatback

Your right I don't know what I was thinking a thought for sure it was the other way around haha my bad.


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## The_Other_One

I hear of too many problems with those SATA converters.  I'd suggest getting an SATA controller instead.  It might cost a bit more, but you'd probably have slightly better performance (at least out of hard drives) and shouldn't have to worry about drive incompatibility.


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