the southbridge, and therefore the 965 itself doesn't support pata, but third party controllers, much like we've had forever for extra pata ports then for sata when that came out, are used for the single pata slot. i think most of these chips are adding 2 sata and one pata port to the board. the main issue seems to be this new controller that intel has all but forced a company to produce doesn't seem to be recognised by windows install cd, so from a new install it shouldn't be able to boot and install windows. major ******* up(assuming the other word is banned
) by intel that has apparently only recently been noticed, not sure if new shipments of fixed pata controllers have been made/sent, if they have they are in very short supply and mobo makers have very little time to get them out for launch.
as for sata dvd writers, i'm sure i've read a couple manu's complain about compatibility, i think similar issues, windows is old, with a disk without the means to identify a dvd drive easily if its on sata then you can't install windows. i'm not sure if you can or can't install windows off a sata drive, that was ages ago i saw that.
also, i think msi had a sata dvd writer out for ages, but i don't know if i ever found it in the uk. i think ocuk had the same model but the pata version, came with 3 diff colour bezels. the uptake of sata dvd drives has been appalling. to a point at least intel with their power are forcing most companies to get them out there now, causes initial issues but hopefully in a few months they'll be loads of them out.