how to configure combo SATA/PATA HDD in SFF PC?

[spiffy]

Hi everyone,

I have a small form factor PC, using SATA HDD for the first time. Does anyone know how to configure the HDDs and the DVD drive, if I have only one SATA HDD, and the second HDD and the DVD drive are both PATA? It's an Intel865 chipset with ICH5, which I'm told is one controller for both the SATA and PATA devices; and that I need to check the master/slave settings to make sure the devices are not in conflicts with each other. However, if I have both SATA and PATA devices in the system, the SATA is automatically bumped down to secondary drive (which means SATA won't boot first.) But since the SATA HDD is the OS drive (Win2K), am I supposed to set the SATA HDD as master, and the PATA HDD & DVD as slaves? Or because the SATA HDD will not boot first, I need to set the PATA HDD as master, the other devices as slaves?

This is my first SFF PC, and since the three devices each have its own connectors and cables, I thought they all could be left as masters. Wrong, I guess.

Hope my questions make sense. Thanks in advance...

Spiffy

[Soopafresh]

There should be a bios setting to tell your SFF to boot from SATA.

SATA doesn't have primary or secondary in the same way PATA does.


On the IDE controller, set your PATA hard drive to primary(master) via the jumper pins on the drive, and the CD ROM drive to secondary (slave) via the jumper pins on the back of it.