ok, recently my PC MOBO died. The hard drives are ok. I have 2 IDE and one SATA(OS is on here).

I am building a new rig, but need to get someimportant docs off the sata before I reformat it.

is there an easy way to do this so I sont lose everything.

I was thinking of installing xp to the IDE and booting from that IDE. If I do this, even though the sata has xp on it as well, can I boot to the IDE jsut to view the sata and grab teh files I need off of it?

Please let me knoe as these files are very important.

Thanks

I also have another question. Can I use a sata 1 drive(western digital raptor) in a sata 2 port? Are they backwards compatible?

Also. I am planning on getting 2 Geforce 7800GT SLI. I have a 630watt power supply. Will this PSU be enough to power both cards for the max sli experience?

Thanks again

you said that the mobo died and your hdds ok... i assume you already have a windows on it? in that case, you might not need to clean format (unless thats your intention), just plug an play.. although depending on how similar the points are on the replacement mobo, the most windows will give you trouble is just not letting you access because of teh difference.. which a quick safe mode or repair cd would fix...

ide booting off that will work, just make sure the mobo has that ability to do so (but i dont see why not)..

630w psu should be plenty.. you can try check with a online psu calculator to give you a minimum of what you should be using, and make sure its a good quality brand psu... and maybe just wait for a second oppinion first, since i dont run 2x SLI cards before..

Sata 1 and 2 dont have a clue.. most likely.. but just wait a bit for someone to give you that..