StarTechBI-Directional SATA IDE Adapter

This is a good device that will hook up an old IDE hard drive to a SATA main board. It is supposed to work the other way 'round - hooking a SATA drive into an old main board that was made for IDE hard drives - but I have no such main boards, so I can't check that ability. Still, I was pleased to recover some old data that I wanted from an IDE drive that I hadn't been able to access for several years.Installation is a little tricky, but remember that IDE drives are outdated, and they have been for some time now. I once had a SATA main board that had an IDE data connector... but that main board would be eight years old if it still worked. It seems that the hardware designers have now pretty much gone SATA and haven't really looked back, and that's where this adapter comes in.If the adapter doesn't work at first, here are some tips.Don't make the mistake of thinking that this adapter will power an IDE hard drive (and I don't believe that it would power a SATA, either). It won't - plug a power connecter into that old drive. Use the provided power cord adapter if you need to.As to powering the adapter itself, it needs the power cord from the power supply that would go to an old-style floppy drive. Again, use the provided adapter cord if needed - and it might be needed, even if you can plug a cord into the power outlet on the adapter itself. I couldn't power the adapter until I used the adapter power cord, even though I found a cord that would fit.Finally, keep in mind that any IDE drive is likely to be rather old, and no hard drive that I know of will last forever, even if you have never dropped it. If the hard drive has failed, no adapter can make it work again. Such a hard drive would probably need to be physically taken apart and repaired.If these tips don't make the adapter work, be careful of continuing to try. Doing so could damage your main board. Again, IDE is an outdated technology, and my impression is that more modern computer hardware isn't especially backward-compatible. Be careful, but you can probably do this, and this adapter is a fine choice to make the attempt.

Just what I needed. This part lets me use my old disk and floppy drives and let me read and copy my family's HDDs from the early 2000s.

Windows 7 was not recognizing full capacity of Maxtor Diamond Max 10 6L300R0 PATA133 hard drive mounted in an external USB 2.0 enclosure. I thought I would try the PATA2SATA3 adapter connected directly to the motherboard. No IDE or extra power connections on motherboard. Easily connected SATA cable to motherboard and I'm using the USB enclosure for power. Have to leave the cover off the USB enclosure to see the adapter's activity lights, and there's not enough clearance in the enclosure. Both bios and Windows 7 recognized the "full" capacity right away. Main power connection is a very tight fit. Need pliers to get apart. Works great. 26 minutes to do a full backup and system image with Windows Backup. I am fully satisfied. This now creates more projects with the extra hard drives I have lying around the house. I will continue to buy products as needed from Startech.

My son has been working on rebuilding one of my old PCs with newer parts and had tried several SATA IDE adapters that he (and I) could not get to work, no matter what we tried. This one just plugged in and worked right out of the box, no updates or 3rd party drivers required.

Got my old CD-ROM to work! Easy connection with a good build quality.

I wouldn't give you a nickel for this piece of junk. I bought it to connect an IDE Drive to SATA connector. It has a fancy floppy power connector on it but it has two SATA data connections and no SATA power. This thing is a useless piece of junk.

Direct plug in required; as far as I know. i gave this item a 3 because it needs to be plugged direct to your mother board. I have 2 sata ports and 2 IDE. The IDE ports have 2 drives each. I wanted to use this device on one of the ribbons but it must be plugged into the mother board (adapter is a female IDE connection - needs to be a male connection like a drive or come with an adapter). If you have a female to male IDE adapter I don't know if this will work but it does work OK when plugged into the MOBO.

This must now be only a "niche" item, since the enthusiast community, the OEM manufacturers of PCs at large and the technology have banished IDE drives to the heap of obsolescence.As an enthusiast, I have many surplus hard disks. I am still trying to rid myself of lower-capacity IDE drives.But I had invested some years back in a Startech IDE hot-swap drive bay-and-caddies with three Hitachi 500GB IDE spinners. Since these devices were all intended for backup, they still have "low-mileage." I estimate the total of the original outlay in 2006 nominal dollars at ~$345. I maintain a home-server running WHS-2011 (Win 2008 R2). I wanted to use these old items as part of a backup strategy for the server itself.I tried several SATA-to-IDE devices such as this StarTech bi-directional unit, but they were older and therefore slower. The residual problem with ANY of these devices arises because the adapter(s) remain powered when you wish to "safely remove" and swap the drives-in-caddies. But it turns out that most bay-and-caddy designs provide a 12V port for a rear option fan, and the 12V fan plug is switched to the bay/caddy keyswitch. The Bi-directional (and other such) adapters are powered by a 5V connection to the computer power supply. So we were able to run a floppy-power-plug connecting the adapter with a 7805 5V voltage regulator spliced into the wiring, and we connected the ground and + wires to the 12V port on the rear of the hot-swap bay. Works like a charm, so the adapter powers down with the drive, and the IDE drive with its SATA connection through the adapter is completely "hot-swappable" as one would wish.