I bought one of the Drinkwell fountains last summer - the cats wouldn't come
near it, they were so afraid of it!  So I emptied it, unplugged it and left
it on the floor in one of the main rooms of the house, so that they would
have to walk past it to get anywhere in the house.  Every day I scooted it
nearer and nearer their existing water dish, until it was right next to it,
and they didn't seem to mind it.  I filled it with water every time I filled
their regular dish for a few days, but then I let their regular dish run out
of water, and they were drinking from the still-unplugged fountain.  Then I
turned it on, and they shied away from it at first, but then I caught Lizzie
drinking from the stream!  Now we have 3 of these things, in different rooms
of the house, Lizzie prefers drinking from the stream, Smokey & Weeble will
drink out of either the stream or the bowl, but Tennessee will only drink
out of the bowl.  When we had Weeble neutered, we had him locked in our
bedroom for the first night with just a bowl of water (food & litter box
too) - he wouldn't touch it!  When we let him out into the rest of the
house, he went straight for one of the fountains and drank for about 5
minutes!