on the harddrive there will be a table that shows everything from cable select to slave. its just a 2 prong pin where its position is, is how its mode is determined. i know not everyone has money to waste/use, but if i were in that situation i would buy a larger sata hard drive and use it as my drive that i back-up to. IDE is a thing of the past, its all sata now, so to me its worth it, if you can find a deal on something like a 250gig hd for $100. if money is an issue, see if a friend has a spare drive you can borrow, or just bring your harddrive with a sata cable and just do it at their place.