Will my Motherboard Accept this IDE Device??? HELP!! (1 Viewer)

[Christopher Chung]

How's it going fellow HTF'ers?
I'm in dire need of help and as the title mentions, I'll be trying to add a 250MB IDE Zip drive to my computer's motherboard. Well, this would otherwise be no problem for me but I ran across something that stumped me. I have 2 IDE ports, but they are both occupied by my 2 CD-ROMs (DVD-ROM & CD-RW) and by the Hard Drive. I know that normally I would just link it up to the CD ROM's 40-pin connector, but its taken.
Now my motherboard is equipped with two RAID IDE Interfaces with ATA-100 and RAID 0,1,0+1 support (btw, I have no idea what this means). Will I be able to use one of these ports with the Zip? And if so, what jumper setting will i set my Zip to? If I can't do this, what other options do I have? Here's a link to see all the specs on my motherboard:My Motherboard
I would REALLY appreciate any help! I'm SO DESPERATE! :b
Chris

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

Your motherboard has a total of 4 IDE connectors and can support up to 8 IDE devices. You should have no problem. You can use either one of those IDE RAID interfaces. Personally, I think the best configuration speed wise would be to put 1 device per connector (don't place 2 devices on any IDE cable).

 

[Christopher Chung]

Hey thanks Gaberiel,

I spoke with one of the representatives from my computer's manufacturers, and he told me that I should not use the RIAD IDE ports. He told me to go get a IDE PCI Controller Card. But I'll try connecting to the RAID port.

By the way, by doing this, will I affect my options in the future should I using RAID? ...meaning, will I have to switch things around in the future?

Thanks!
Chris

 

[Jeff Kleist]

RAID means Redundant Array of Independant Discs

Basically you make a bunch of HDs look to the computer like one big one. This can result in mad data access speed and also can serve to backup all your data to 2 discs at the same time, giving you much better failure protection

 

[Christopher Chung]

Thanks Jeff,

So do you think the Zip will work with the RAID ports? Do RAID port even accept ATAPI Devices?

Chris

 

[Steve_Ch]

Your rep is right, you should not put the Zip along with the other RAID HDs. The reason is your RAID HDs (generally) operate in parallel, so hooking a zip to the RAID channel is like having 3 cars hook together, 2 of those are Maseratis, and one is a Yugo, you will be severely limited by the weakest link.

 

[Christopher Chung]

Ahhh, thanks for the confirmation Steve. Can anybody recoment a good IDE PCI Controller card?

I really appreciate all the input guys, it help's me out a lot!

Chris

 

[Eric Gan]

Wait a minute, before you go out and buy that PCI IDE controller card.....

From what I read above, you have 2 optical drives (CDRW/DVD) on one IDE inteface, and one hard drive on the other. You should be able to hook up your ZIP drive to the extra connector on the hard drive chain, no? Perhaps, your cable on that chain only has one connector? If that's the case, it'll only cost you a couple of bucks to buy an IDE cable with 2 connectors on it.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[Christopher Chung]

Thanks for the tip Eric,

Actually I thought about hooking the Zip up to the Hard Drives IDE Cable, but I think I read somewhere that doing so and settign the Zip's jumper to Slave would not be good, and I think the IDE Cable is for adding another Hard Drive, I don't know, I'll try it anyways....

But on the topic of the PCI Card, I did some searching and read that using the Promise card, I could hook up the hard drive (or multiple HD's) and use the newly vacant IDE port on the motherboard for other ATAPI Devices. Now something like this would interest me but I am afraid I might do something to complicate my system and do it some harm. As I mentioned before, the motherboard has two RAID ports, and I will soon upgrade to use that capability.

So after that barrage or info, I'd like to know how I can have an optimized system using the two IDE ports, two RAID ports, and IDE Controller card (either using all or some of the ports). And have these devices: 2 Hard Drives, 2 CD-ROMs, and a Zip.

Sorry, I know that's a lot of words, but I'm curious as to what my computer is capable of.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

You can slave the Zip to the HD, howevery ou will take a noticeable performance hit on drive transfer speed from the hD

Anything by Promise is a great card

 

[Danny R]

There is no need to buy an IDE card. You have more than enough ports. The controller that runs the RAID/IDE ports on your motherboard is in fact an integrated Promise card, so you would only be duplicating yourself by purchasing another one.

Put your hard drive on the raid controller. Its designed to run hard drives, and there is no reason why you shouldn't use it even if you only have one drive. The rep that said not to use it doesn't know what he's talking about. I've put hard drives on that port many times.

Put your zip drive on the secondary RAID port as a master.

Put each of your CD and DVD's as masters on the standard IDE ports.

The RAID controller is just a Promise PDC20267 controller that is fully IDE/ATAPI compliant... it just has additional RAID support built in. As long as the hard drive and zip are on separate ports, you won't notice the slowdown mentioned above.

 

[Christopher Chung]

Sweet, I thought I might be able to do something like this. One concern though is that will my computer still recgonize the Hard Drave at boot up, OR will I have to do something in the BIOS?

THanks again peoples!
Chris

 

[Danny R]

You *may* need to turn on the controller in the BIOS (if the ports are turned off, but they probably aren't). No other configuration should be needed.

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

Danny R is correct, the Rep that you called is smoking the good stuff. The RAID channels are just fine for standard IDE devices.

Place your main HD on 1 of the RAID channels, and the DVD-Rom on the other. Place the CD-RW on one IDE channel, and the Zip on the other.