IDE to SATA conversion.

I recently built a new system for a client of mine. Of course this system uses SATA interface. I atttempted to setup his old IDE drive as a slave using an IDE to SATA converter. The drive will not be recognized, not even in BIOS. Tried different configs. Any solution? I have a job coming up that will upgrade a Server running Windows 2000 server on an IDE hard drive to a new server with SATA hard drives. This client wants to clone this hard drive to the new hard drive. I was thinking of using the converter. Is it possible.