SATA, ATA? Work in the same machine?

[Mr Spew]

Hey,

My friend has a PC with what I presume are two 80GB ATA drives, would putting a 250GB SATA in it actually work? Do I need special cabling or do they need to be linked in any special way?

 

[smids]

1) It will work.
2) It requires a SATA cable (SATA port on the motherboard too)
3) It requires a SATA power cable (not all models, see Western Digital and Hitachi) but you can buy splitters for all of £3 which convert a normal molex power connector into 2 SATA power cables.
4) No extra serious cabling is needed, only those which the drive requires. You may need to install SATA drivers for the SATA controller on the motherboard or PCI SATA controller (whichever your friend has).

In summary:
SATA data cable
SATA power cable
SATA drive
SATA port on the controller (motherboard or PCI).