Customer Reviews

HDE (TM) SATA to IDE/IDE to SATA Drive Interface Adapter

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(35)

 

 

1. Don't buy an extra SATA cable if you need it. It comes with one.
2. Make sure you have at least two inches of free space between the back of the hard drive and any other object (typically the power supply)
3. This adapter is reversible, and does SATA to IDE, or IDE to SATA.
4. There are two plugs for the SATA cable. One is for IDE to SATA, the other is for SATA to IDE. Each one is clearly marked on both sides of the board.
5. The power plug that plugs into the board ONLY powers the adapter, NOT the drive. You'll still need a power plug going directly to the drive.

If you're plugging a SATA drive into a computer that only supports IDE (or vice-versa), don't expect SATA performance. I really wouldn't treat this as a permanent solution either. It's great for transferring data from old drives, but I wouldn't install my operating system on it, as it does decrease the performance of the drive significantly.

I wanted to say that I was able to get this adapter to work in the Intel D865GBF, D865GLC and D875PBZ series of motherboards in both directions from SATA-to-IDE and IDE-to-SATA. Here are two tips, make sure the connector is plugged in over all 40 IDE pins, I have made the mistake more then once of not centering the plug over all 40 pins and be off by one column and therefore causing it to not work. The other tip is make sure you read the markings on the two SATA connectors, one of them is designed for conversion in one direction, and the other is for the opposite direction. Its important you plug your SATA cable into the right connector depending on which direction you are converting!

I did try to use this adapter on an older ASUS A7V8X-X motherboard and I had some trouble having it recognize the 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA HD. It would first recognize it in the BIOS but when I did a reboot it would not find it the second time until I powered off and back on the unit. I'm not sure if I had a loose connection in the 40pin IDE port on the motherboard or if I didnt have a BIOS setting correct for the ultra PATA transfer speed. What's interesting is that the A7V8X-X has Ultra ATA133 speed support using the VIA chipset, whereas the Intel only has up to Ultra ATA100 speed support using the Intel chipset. I did not have chance to try to lower the ASUS ATA speed from 133 down to 100, I'm not even sure if that can be done in the BIOS or not.

If you look at the device very carefully, reading the tiny print on it, you'll figure it out, but otherwise, it's easy to install it incorrectly causing it to seem broken. It's especially easy to make this mistake because at first you probably won't notice that there are 2 places to connect the cable to the adapter, and so may plug it into the wrong one as I did at first.

Also, the power adapter that comes with it is just for the device itself, not for your hard drive as I thought. Had to order a power adapter before I could test this device out because I was installing a SATA drive in a computer that didn't provide SATA power.

Finally, as others have mentioned, it is very flimsy, especially the power adapter, but I'm rating it 3 stars overall because in the end, it worked. If it had a manual, installation would be easy and I would rate it much higher. It works without any drivers or software, and that's a good thing. Even after installing it correctly though, I had to fiddle with it before it would work. I've been using it long enough to see that it's reliable once it works. If you can't get it to work, don't expect any help from the supplier.

Works like it says. It actually speeds up the performance of the PATA drive also. I did benchmarks using ATTO hard drive benchmark tool. Max SATA Speed: Read: 85.899 MB/s Write: 84.813 MB/s. Max PATA Speed: Read: 32.147 MB/s Write: 31.767 MB/s. That's a great improvement! It could have used some better instructions though. Be sure to set your PATA hard drive jumper to Master.

With this nifty device you can use an older HD or DVD player/recorder you already own on a newer system, saving some real $$$... works great and at a fraction of the cost for the same item at the local 'Geek' store....

This adapter is a handly universal device but the one I received was poorly manufactured. The connector were not square to the board when they were soldered and loads of flux was left on the board.

However it worked fine the first time to connect an old ATA drive into my SATA machine. I have not seen any performance isues and for the price the adapter is worth the money.

Some quick notes about using this device
1. 2 power connections will be required for this device. one mini connector to provide power to the card and 1 power connector for your drive. It includes a standard to mini power adapter that can be used to power the card but this will not help is you have a SATA system with no spare power connectors. I had a spare mini power connector available that I used for the card but needed to add a Y connector to power the ATA drive.
2. the card has 2 spots for SATA cables and they are labeled to IDE HD and to SATA HD. You must use the right one.
3. The SATA cable supplied was short (12") and very stiff. you may not be able to use it depending on how the drive is mounted.
4. Due to the size of the card in some systems their may not be space.

I recently purchased a new computer and needed to install the 2nd hard drive from my old system, which had all my files, into the new system but the older drive was IDE and the new system was SATA. I found this adapter on Amazon for about 1/4th the price of a similar unit at a local computer shop. Initially I couldn't get the new system to recognize the IDE drive but then I remembered reading a review that said to set the 2nd HD jumpers as a master rather than slave or cable select. After doing so the IDE HD was recognized and evrything works fine. Also you have to put power to both the adapter and the drive which I had to figure out on my own. I would give this adapter a 5 star rating but there were virtually no instructions included with the product. Great price though, and free shipping too!

I was short by one SATA port for an additional external HDD but had an extra IDE port on my motherboard. I used this adapter to connect the SATA DVD-RW drive to the IDE port which liberated one SATA port for my external drive. I had to reduce the DVD write speed from 16x to 8x to avoid errors. But since I don't burn DVDs that often, this is not a problem. A ridiculous price for an elegant solution.

Bought this to move my IDE Hitachi drive to a new SATA-only computer. Initially stumbled on connecting the SATA cable to the wrong port on this converter. As has been mentioned, there are 2 SATA connectors on the board but the board is labeled so just need to be aware of that. I did not encounter the incorrect labeling that was mentioned in other reviews. However after cabling up my Hitachi IDE drive was not being recognized in the BIOS or by Windows 7. Tried a bunch of things, nothing worked. Was about to give up then noted pins near the 40-pin connector that set the Master/Slave mode of the drive. My drive was set to slave mode and had been running fine in my old IDE based computer. I tried setting the IDE drive to Master and viola, drive seen in BIOS and by Windows 7. Not sure what other IDE drives are typically set to but if you are not seeing your IDE drive, might try setting it to Master, if it is set to Slave mode. Be sure to note the jumper settings in case you have to move them back.

I was skeptical at first after reading other reviews but decided it would be worth loosing 5 dollars if it didn't work. Everyone is pretty right on, misspelled words on packaging, no instructions, poor solders, but I actually got it to work and am very satisfied. Found something similar at mom and pop store for 20 dollars but got it cheap here.

I needed to hook up an older PATA IDE hard drive to a newer SATA motherboard. I ran power to both the adapter and the drive, set the drive jumpers to master, and hooked up the SATA cable to the 'SATA to IDE' port (written in very small print on the board). When I restarted my computer Windows 7 recognized it right away.

Comes with SATA cable and power adapter.