> You can buy SATA to PATA connectors to go on the back on PATA disk and cdrom > drives to connect them to SATA. I have one but don't use it, too far from > disk to motherboard for the short SATA cables I got. DSE has them.
Two issues with that: 1) That increases the price. Remember, SATA was supposed to be *cheaper* new technology! 2) How much trouble are you going to get with one additional layer of obscurity? Specifically, does smartmontools work? It doesn't even work with plain SATA until kernel 2.6.15, in other words none of the current distros (as far as I am aware). That was for hard disks. For burners, do they still all work, given that many of them require special "treatment" in the low-level command department? These converters may well be useful, but I wouldn't expect them to magically solve all problems. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
