Intel 2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80GHz
6GB Ram
64-bit Vista w/ SP1
BIOS: American Megatrends 5.37, 2/23/2009

I just bought this new desktop and would like to use an old 500gb Seagate (Barracuda 7200.10) drive which used to work fine as the IDE slave on my old XP machine. I also just bought an IDE-SATA converter as my motherboard only has one IDE controller but for a floppy drive.

I've set the jumper cables to 'slave' on the new drive, and hooked it using a SATA data cable to the SATA2 slot on the motherboard. When I turn the computer on, I don't even manage to get to the BIOS Screen.

So I disconnected it, went into BIOS with my default settings (SATA0 for master HD, SATA1 DVD R/W), and changed the SATA1 control mode to 'IDE' from 'RAID', turned of the computer and reconnected the old HD to SATA1. This time I manage to get to the BIOS menu, but my old drive is not recognized. the computer just crashes if I let it boot normally without pressing F10 to get to the BIOS setup screen.

Am I doing anything wrong here? the IDE-SATA converter lights up, indicating that it should technically be working. are there any known issues with these types of converters??

Any hints/tips/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Set the jumper on the IDE drive to Master. SATA drives don't have a master/slave relationship, setting the drive to slave probably confuses the SATA converter.

did not know that about SATA--- however I've tried that now and I get the blue screen of death and the computer just reboots instantly.

Could it be something with the converter? the HDD works fine on the old XP machine

You are confused here. An IDE port is not the same as a floppy connection. One IDE port is enough for two IDE drives (master and slave, HD and/or DVD drives) and this is the only time you set jumpers as such. The IDE port is a 40-pin connector, Floppy is 34 pin. What type of motherboard (or system) are you using?