My hard drive is getting noisy so I'm going to replace it before it blows chunks. The problem as I see it, is that this computer uses IDE (or is that EIDE?) to connect master/slave 1 and 2, and that is going out of style. It might be smart to buy a SATA HDD so I can swap it into a newer computer when this one dies. I'm thinking I can get a PCI to SATA card and buy a SATA HDD, but will that interfere with the bios finding the HDD to boot, and am I using the words correctly?

ps, it's a Dell Dimension 8250 running XP SP3.

 

The trouble is that the SATA PCI card will cost you a bit and there will be no guarantee that your Dell will be able to actually boot from the add-in card. IDE drives are not so commonplace these days but you can pick one up for a small increase in price over a SATA model. When you do renew your PC you could always pick up a IDE to SATA converter which would plug into your drive and allow you to use it on the SATA interface.

 

Thanks. Parts ordered. Problem solved.