SATA to IDE converter

[martinp]

Hi everyone,

This is probably a bit of an odd question, but hopefully someone can help...

I have a Sony Blu-Ray drive installed in my Mac Pro (currently connected to the ODD_SATA ports) and its pretty much useless.

Windows cannot see the drive (as AHCI is disabled on 'legacy' OSs) and this is the only OS I can watch the Blu-Ray movies on. OS X and its apps (ie DVD player) can see the drive and read of it, although no 3rd-party apps can - such as Roxio Toast.

If I could convert the drive to use the PATA interface just like the Pioneer Super-Drive, I'd have compatibility in all OSs and programs.

I'd be very grateful to anyone who points me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance,

Martin

[arthurleung]

Take the Blu-Ray drive out and use a USB enclosure?
The cost of the converter is probably no different from getting a USB-SATA enclosure. And it is more likely to work with USB than with IDE.
God know what Apple did to the IDE bus if they couldn't get a Blu-ray drive working on the SATA bus.

[BobF64]

I have a Sony Blu-Ray drive installed in my Mac Pro (currently connected to the ODD_SATA ports) and its pretty much useless.

Windows cannot see the drive (as AHCI is disabled on 'legacy' OSs) and this is the only OS I can watch the Blu-Ray movies on.

I have a Sony Blu-Ray drive in my media PC, a BDU-X10S, works just fine using SATA in IDE mode, not an AHCI in sight.

What version of Windows is it? XP doesnt natively support blu-ray drives, but should still be able to see the hardware connected, Vista should be fine as is.

Is it shown connected in the bios?

Did the drive come with the Mac? Maybe Apple had Sony sell them a modified version?

[martinp]

Arthurleung: I'll take a look into one of those enclosures. Although, ideally keeping it internal would be the neatest solution.

BobF64: On a normal PC it would work OK. However, as this is essentially a server board its a little different.

I have 6 SATA ports, four for HDDs and 2 spare (ODD_SATA) ports. Under Legacy/IDE mode the two 'ODD_SATA' ports are disabled.

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 w/SP1. The Mac doesn't have a BIOS, however it does display under OS X so it is connected properly.

The drive didn't come with the Mac, I bought it from Scan. I've seen numerous people with Blu-Ray drives installed however, they all had the converter I'm looking for to get it working properly.

EDIT: Search and Ye Shall Find - found one on Amazon.

[BobF64]

I have 6 SATA ports, four for HDDs and 2 spare (ODD_SATA) ports. Under Legacy/IDE mode the two 'ODD_SATA' ports are disabled.

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 w/SP1. The Mac doesn't have a BIOS, however it does display under OS X so it is connected properly.

Are you using Bootcamp?

Logically, if the ports are disabled, theyre disabled, independantly of the OS.
If theyre on a Mac, its anyones guess what evil is involved there

Can you not change the SATA mode to AHCI?
Installing the AHCI drivers first, then rebooting and changing the mode has worked for others.

[martinp]

Bob: I have Vista installed as both a virtual machine using Fusion and it is also installed on its own Hard Drive (can't use boot camp as I have a RAID setup under OS X).

To enable AHCI is more complicated than just changing the registry setting in Vista, installing AHCI drivers and restarting. See this guide - I tried and failed!

Its actually a PITA that Apple done that but other than doing the stuff mentioned in the guide these two ports won't work under any other OS.

Good news is though, I done a little search on eBay and found one for just £4! Glad I checked that out, pity its from Honk Kong though, 2 weeks waiting time.

[BobF64]

Worth trying then, as I dont really see any other way of getting it to work properly.