Adding a SATA hard drive to a Dimension 8250

I have a Dimension 8250 with a 250 GB EIDE hard drive. Will be adding a
500 - 700 GB hard drive to it and was thinking I'd get a SATA drive
instead of an EIDE drive. If I do get a SATA drive, I know I'll need to
install a SATA controller card. Will the Dimension 8250 BIOS have
trouble recognizing both the EIDE drive and the SATA drive? I've
installed the latest BIOS update. If possible I'd like to make the SATA
drive the master. Also, can anyone recommend a good (and not too
expensive) SATA controller card?

Your 8250 should be no problem. I've been using a Promise SATA controller
card in my 8200 for quite some time now. Yes you can boot to the SATA drive
as well as recognize the IDE drives with no problem.

For several years, my 8200 booted to a 36-gig SATA Raptor drive and used a
250gig IDE drive for data.


"Mikey" <Mikey@home.rightnow> wrote in message
news:47E30902.28D1A185@home.rightnow...
>I have a Dimension 8250 with a 250 GB EIDE hard drive. Will be adding a
> 500 - 700 GB hard drive to it and was thinking I'd get a SATA drive
> instead of an EIDE drive. If I do get a SATA drive, I know I'll need to
> install a SATA controller card. Will the Dimension 8250 BIOS have
> trouble recognizing both the EIDE drive and the SATA drive? I've
> installed the latest BIOS update. If possible I'd like to make the SATA
> drive the master. Also, can anyone recommend a good (and not too
> expensive) SATA controller card?
>

Thank you for the reply. I thought it would probably work, but Dell computers
are a bit proprietary in some things (like motherboards...) and I wasn't sure.
But if it works for your 8200, it should work for my 8250.

Timothy Drouillard wrote:

> Your 8250 should be no problem. I've been using a Promise SATA controller
> card in my 8200 for quite some time now. Yes you can boot to the SATA drive
> as well as recognize the IDE drives with no problem.
>
> For several years, my 8200 booted to a 36-gig SATA Raptor drive and used a
> 250gig IDE drive for data.
>
> "Mikey" <Mikey@home.rightnow> wrote in message
> news:47E30902.28D1A185@home.rightnow...
> >I have a Dimension 8250 with a 250 GB EIDE hard drive. Will be adding a
> > 500 - 700 GB hard drive to it and was thinking I'd get a SATA drive
> > instead of an EIDE drive. If I do get a SATA drive, I know I'll need to
> > install a SATA controller card. Will the Dimension 8250 BIOS have
> > trouble recognizing both the EIDE drive and the SATA drive? I've
> > installed the latest BIOS update. If possible I'd like to make the SATA
> > drive the master. Also, can anyone recommend a good (and not too
> > expensive) SATA controller card?
> >