Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of causewaybay
causewaybayFlag for Canada

asked on

Must I add an SATA hdd to use Windows MSE 2005?

I have jsut bought a Windows MSE 2005 from ebay (3 disks version - legal!). I planned to add it to my IBM netVista 8307-82U. following is the spec: Intel Pentium 4 2.66 GHz; IBM Hard Drive  DMA/ATA-100 (Ultra) 40G storage; 1 Gig DDR SDRAM ; motherboard Bus Speed  533 MHz; WindowsXP Pro.

Recently I'm using this machine as pvr with ATI TV Wonder Elite card and Nero software. The effect is satisfactory. However, the World Soccer is coming and I want to perfect my system to give my husband the best possible PVR experience. So I had planned to add more storage space and upgrade to MSE 2005. However, after I bought the OS i made a little study in this site and it seems there needs to be a specific hardware envirolment to make MSE 2005 function. So I want to know is my present hardware setting good enough? What else do I need to add? Can MSE run on a PATA drive like what I have now? And since I have decided to buy a larger drive, I don't mind buying a SATA; but I'll have to add a card for it. How much will this extra PCI card cost me? And is the performance of SATA on a PCI card worth investing?

Thank you!
SOLUTION
Avatar of zephyr_hex (Megan)
zephyr_hex (Megan)
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Lee W, MVP
Agreed - ever see a TiVo - they use PATA 5400 RPM disks - the 7200 can generate too much heat for the TiVo boxes and the requirements for writing data to the disks on a PVR is generally not very high.  You should be fine with what you have.

If you WANT to get SATA, go ahead, it shouldn't hurt anything.  The addon controllers go for as little as $12 at www.newegg.com.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
I Agree with what i posted above becoz I believe that there's no big difference between MCE 2004/2005 and XP professional as only few things has been changed..