Using an old PATA drive with Windows on it

I have an old WD Caviar drive with Win ME on it from my last system. I'm considering installing SuSE 9.2 to play around withm and thought this drive might be useful. I'd like to have a look around it first to see if there's anything worth keeping. Seeing as there's already a Windows install on there, can I just plug the drive into a spare IDE channel, set it to slave and trawl around, or will my SATA drive complain (it's on the Silicon Image controller of my Asus mobo)?

Following that, would it be simple to install SuSE on the blank drive?

Should be fine, as long as it's recognised in the Bios windows should recognise it too.

I'm supposed to be gardening this afternoon :( Come on rain!!