ASUS A8V SATA and IDE config....newbie questions

[maddmaxx]

I put this post in the MOBO forum, but after 40+ looks couldn't get any help. So I thought I would put it here and try my luck.

I just got my A8V Deluxe and have a 200GB Western Digital SATA drive hooked up and running as my main drive through the SATA connection. I would like to put my Maxtor 200GB in as a secondary drive on the IDE connection. I tried to no avail to hook up the drive. Whenever I connect the IDE drive, the system just tries to boot to that drive, and I can't find a setting in BIOS to tell it otherwise. Once the IDE drive is plugged in, the SATA drive goes away as a choice for first boot device???

I currently have a NEC DVD-RW as the secondary master, and a Samsung DVD ROM as the secondary slave.

Is it possible to run an IDE drive as a slave with the SATA drive as a master? If so..... how do I do this?

Also, if I decided to put a third hard drive in (I have another IDE drive), how would I do this? Go RAID or can I have a SATA drive and two IDE drives?

I have built several systems, but I am new to SATA and RAID, so thanks for any input!!!

peace

 

[Aldraxis]

Would be great to see some answers for this ... as I'm currently building a nearly identical system ... except two SATA HD's instead.

Someone can kill two birds with one stone on this one.

 

[mechBgon]

Look on pages 4-34 and 4-35 of your manual for reference, they show the Boot Device Priority there. Go into it and make the SATA drive the hard drive of choice.

So once that's in, you'll have three Parallel ATA devices (two optical, one HDD) and one SATA. You can add a fourth PATA drive, such as another hard drive, on the cable that's got the first PATA hard drive on it now.

 

[maddmaxx]

Thanks mechBgon for the input. I had been trying to change the Boot Priority but once I installed the PATA drive the SATA drive went away as a choice for first boot drive. It was after I read your post that I went back in again and looked at it, and "discovered" the Hard Disk Drives choice in the BIOS. Once I went in and told the BIOS that the SATA drive is drive 1, I was able to then set the Boot Priority for the SATA as the first boot device..... it was there all the time, I was just overlooking it!

Anyways, thanks again for the input.

BTW....
I am wondering if I should set up a raid system using my SATA and one of my PATA drives. Like I said, I am new to SATA and RAID, but from what little I understand about RAID, I think it might be a good thing. The main purpose I have the other large HD's is so that I may back up all of our files, as well as have storage.
That being said, would you recommend RAID. If so, would it be good to keep the SATA as my main drive and use one of the PATA's as the next drive?

Thanks again!

peace

 

[MrChad]

1. You can't set up a RAID with a SATA and PATA drive. You'll need two (preferably identical) SATA or two PATA drives.
2. The performance gains of RAID-0 are a bit overrated, especially with non-SCSI drives on software-based RAID controllers. I'd rather not have the risk of losing an entire partition if one of my two drives dies. That said, no matter what you choose, be sure to have a good backup plan in place.

 

[TampaGamer]

I have a similar problem with an ASUS A8V Deluxe build that I am trying to complete. I did the above switch and have a Seagate SATA in SATA1 (non-raid) and a SegateUltra ATA in sec IDE (optical is primary IDE). Problem is trying to install WindowsXP Home ed w/ Sp2 included OEM disk. Even if I choose the F6 (load optional driver) and load the SATA driver included on the ASUS CD, it refuses to recognize anything but the old Seagate IDE drive. Any pointers to other threads would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[TampaGamer]

OK. I got it working. Just in case anybody else has the same problem - I did not the use the enclosed CD that came with the ASUS MB, I went to VIA's website and downloaded the latest drivers (in this case the 4.10 SATA Drivers). I then made a floppy and put the SATA drivers for XP on them and it worked. I had done this previously with the CD version that came with the MB but they did not work.

 

[MarisO]

It was after I read your post that I went back in again and looked at it, and "discovered" the Hard Disk Drives choice in the BIOS.

where is it ?