I have an ACARD ATA-133 AEC-6280M PCI-to-IDE ATA-133 Controller for Macintosh card already installed in the 8500 by the guys at the PC/MAC repair shop when I told them I wanted to install Tiger. They connected the 40 GB IDE hard drive to the ACARD so that I could install Tiger on that drive using XPostfacto. Sorry in my earlier posts i think i typed 60 GB whereas actually it is a 40 GB IDE drive. That was my typo error.
If i understand your post then I can plug in a SATA drive into the ACARD along with the 40 GB IDE drive ? The ACARD board layout has IDE 1 The Primary IDE port and IDE2 the Secondary IDE port.
if that the case u should be sorted then... just find a new normal CD/DVD drive and plug it in.. and reinstall to the 40gb ide drive
http://dl.acard.com/manual/english/aec-6280m_ver11.pdfheres the manual for the card
yes the acard has 2 IDE "ports" but these ports supports 2 IDE devices EACH!click the pdf above and look for illustrations
you would have been much better off ordering refurbished IDE drives then scsi drives!!!!!!!
they would be from 2005/2006/2007 not 1996:) lol
u can connect a cd/dvd to one of these ports aswell
just use a regular ide cable
the ATA-133 bus of the acard is faster then whatever u had the scsi connected to thats for sure
in fact even in the MDD's the ide bus is only ata-100... this is ata-133
all u need to get rocking and rolling is a 40gb-500gb IDE drive..
OR heres another option
u can get that 500gb drive that is sata and order a 3$ adapter from hongkong that will allow u to hook it up to
the acard 6280M
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5-40Pin-male-IDE-PATA-to-22pin-SATA-female-adapter-JM20330-SATA-IDE-card-/160955338956?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2579af90cclike so..
with one of these u coudl buy a brand new drive (with warranty) and use it on your system and cost would be 60$ for the drive plus the $3 for the adapter
maybe u need ide cables. but u can find those 2nd hand pretty easy too
so this would effectively change the new sata drive to be able to connect just as a normal ide drive would