Customer Reviews

Addonics ADIDESA 150 Mbps IDE to Serial ATA Converter

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I installed the card in less than five minutes on the back of my IDE ATA hard drive and used all the cables that came with it and BINGO it converted it to a Serial ATA Drive.
When I got my new Dell desktop, I could not use my new 250BG IDE ATA hard drive because I did not have any IDE ATA sockets available.
Dell recommended using an IDE to SATA converter.
WHAT A GREAT card!!!

I tried this to connect an IDE Western Digital WD800JB drive to a Dell Dimension 9100. I am a very experienced hardware and software user, so I am sure I connected it correctly. I could only get it to work if I went into BIOS and manually re-detected the drive with every bootup. Then it would take 30 seconds for the system to boot up. Once it did boot up, I could use the IDE drive as expected. My guess is that the Intel Storage Matrix Manager present on my computer (and most new PC's) had compatibliity issues with the Addonics converter. If I didn't go into BIOS and manually re-detect the drive with a bootup, the booting sequence would hang up. Obviously, I don't want a component that will requires manual BIOS setup with each bootup, so I am returning the item.

Your system may behave differently, so give it a try but be sure to return the item within 30 days if it doesn't work for you.

All my info was on my old hard drive out of my Dell 4300.
Bought a new Dell xps 600 with SATA hard drive format.
Installed ADIDESA onto the old hard drive, installed the old hard drive into the new XPS 600 and "poof" the old hard drive worked 1st time.
Rebooted the computer 5 times with no lock up, same good results everytime.
ONLY COPLAINT is that I had to buy a "Y" cord ($5) so I could split power off of the DVD player (which is the same connector as the old hard drive) and jumper power to my old hard drive. This is due to the fact that the SATA hard drive power connecter is different than the old hard drive power connecter and the xps 600 only had extra SATA drive power connectors. ( Radio Shack did not have a SATA power connector to ide drive power pigtail)
Addonics provided all the other wiring that was needed. I even forgot to change the master jumper on the old hard drive to slave with no problems. Adidesa worked like a charm, simple, easy to install, highly recommended.
This was installed two day ago, 5-28-06, will keep you informed of any problems that might accure, but so far so good.

My new computer only had SATA connectors and no IDE connectors. This converter allowed me to use my old IDE data hard disk as my new D: drive. This converter worked without any problems. The instructions are a bit thin, but it's pretty straight forward. Note: due to the angle and bulkiness of this adapter, I had to mount the drive up by the CD drives and not at the bottom of my case like the master hard disk.

Works fine on our brand new PC (pruchased December 2005). Only complaint about the product is not truly comprehensive instructions -- had to call customer support -- which was very good and patient. We didn't know that Drive had to be set to master (was set to slave), once we did that all was fine! Well worth $20 to have access to all the data on our old 250GB drive.

This worked fine for me, but only after I set the IDE drive to Master. Since the meager instructions didn't say this, I figured it out by trial and error.

It's a great way to reuse an old IDE drive with the newer SATA motherboards.

I had the same experience with this product as several other reviewers, so I thought I'd summarize the steps I took to make it work.

1) If you need to run an IDE device (hard drive, CD, DVD), but your PC only has newer SATA data feeds, then you need a converter like the Addonics ADIDESA card. This product will convert a SATA data stream from your PC to the IDE (also known as ATA or Parallel ATA) data stream that is needed by the device. It is also small enough to allow the IDE device to be internally installed into your PC. The ADIDESA assumes that you have a 4-pin Molex power cable available with your PC. The package includes a Y-power cable (1a), which splits a molex power input into 2 outputs: a 4-pin Molex output for the IDE drive, and a small, 4-pin floppy power output which powers the ADIDESA card. The package also includes a SATA data cable (1b) which will be used to connect from a SATA port on your PC to the SATA port on the ADIDESA card.

2) If your PC only has SATA 15 pin power cables (like mine), and your device requires a 4-pin Molex power feed, then you will also need a power conversion cable. There are several different suppliers that sell these. I bought the CRU SATA to 4-Pin Molex Power Adapter (7-inch, RoHS Compliant) from Amazon for $7.73, and it shipped for free along with the ADIDESA. Whatever converter cable you buy, make sure it's SATA male at one end, and 4-pin Molex female at the other end.

3) To install, follow these steps:

3a) Plug the 40-pin IDE connector of the ADIDESA card into the IDE connector of the drive.

3b) Connect the power conversion cable from step 2 into your PC power. Do this by connecting the SATA male plug of the converter cable into the female end of an available SATA power cable from your PC.

3c) Now, plug the 4-pin Molex female end of the same power converter cable into the male 4-pin Molex end of the Y-power cable that came with the ADIDESA (1a). This provides power output that will feed to both the ADIDESA card and the IDE device.

3d) Plug the other 4-pin Molex connector of the Y-power cable into the 4-pin Molex connector of the IDE device

3e) Plug the small, 4-pin floppy connector of the Y-power cable into the power connector on the ADIDESA card. Now you have power into both the ADIDESA card and the IDE device.

3f) Finally, take the SATA data cable (1b) that came with the ADIDESA, and plug one end into a SATA data port on the motherboard of your PC, and the other end into the SATA connector on the ADIDESA card.

You now have both power and data connections from your PC to the IDE device. I followed the ADIDESA directions, and changed the jumper settings on my IDE drive to master, although I'm not sure if I needed to. I also didn't need to change any BIOS settings: when I booted up the PC, the IDE drive just appeared with the next available drive letter. I've also re-booted the PC numerous times without problem. In fact, this drive had previously been inside an external, USB drive, and the USB interface had failed. So I pulled the drive out of the case, connected it up using the steps above, was able to retrieve the data that was already on the drive, and now have the drive internally mounted in the PC. Works like charm, but I'll limit my review to 4 stars because of vague instructions and the lack of a Molex power converter cable.

This converter works, but do yourself a favor and check your power supply before ordering. The cable that comes with this adapter is all you need IF your computer has a molex connector coming from the power supply. Neither the product description nor the very poor installation instructions that come with the converter make it obvious what is needed. My new Dell computer only has SATA connectors, so I ended up ordering a y cable that had the SATA power connector instead of the molex power connector, pay additional shipping and wait for the cable to arrive. If I had known in advance I could have ordered everything I needed and saved time and an additional $8 shipping fee. I think the manufacturer could better serve their customers by being more clear in their product description or by increasing the price by a couple of dollars and including a female molex to male SATA adapter. People who didn't need the adapter initially might need it sometime down the road.

Connection and installation takes 5 min. Now I have old PATA drive converted to SATA.

This product worked well and was easy to install. The instructions were pretty vague. Mostly just pictures with some limited text. There are two ways to install the card and the directions didn't really make it clear when the installation changed from one way to the other.
Directions I got did explicitly state: "Note: It is a requirement that the IDE hard drive or ATAPI device be configured as MASTER before connecting the adapter."
If you've ever installed hardware you'll be able to figure it out without much trouble.
Works very well but I did have some minor space issues with the power cord in my Mac G5. Nothing too complicated.