do i need an additional ide controller card?

[joemamma]

i have the following motherboard

i already have 2 hard drives, a 30 gig and 80 gig, and also 2 optical drives, a dvdrom and cdr drive

if i want to add a dvdr drive do i need an ide controller card? or can i somehow rearrange my computer to utilize the raid ide drives with my hard drives, put 2 optical drives on one regular ide and then the dvdr drive on the other?

if i can't what ide controller card would you recommend?

 

[DieHardware]

Originally posted by: joemamma
i have the following motherboard

i already have 2 hard drives, a 30 gig and 80 gig, and also 2 optical drives, a dvdrom and cdr drive

if i want to add a dvdr drive do i need an ide controller card? or can i somehow rearrange my computer to utilize the raid ide drives with my hard drives, put 2 optical drives on one regular ide and then the dvdr drive on the other?

if i can't what ide controller card would you recommend?

Yes.

 

[joemamma]

heh, the next question would be: how do i do this? do i need drivers or can i just plug the drives in? would i need to reformat my hard drives?

 

[fell8]

Your post is a little confusing,

or can i somehow rearrange my computer to utilize the raid ide drives with my hard drives

What RAID IDE drives? The 30 & 80 gig units you've already mentioned, or completely different drives? If you do have the 30 & 80 in a RAID array, you're losing 50 gigs off the 80 gig drive. As your motherboard has a RAID controller, that means you have 4 IDE channels available, and since each IDE channel supports up to 2 devices (regardless of RAID capability), that would give you a total of 8 IDE devices you can attach to your computer, in which case you wouldn't need an add-on card.

The easiest thing to do is simply set the new optical drive to "slave" and attach it to one of the IDE channels with an optical drive already attached. No drivers or reformatting required, although software will be required to utilize writing capabilities (such drives often include appropriate software). Good luck.

 

[TheCorm]

So if he moved the two hard drives to the RAID IDE connectors but wanted to just use it as a normal IDE controller he would have to reformat?

If this is so then the quickest way would be to replace either your DVD-ROM or CD-Writer with the DVD-Writer. Personally I would replace the DVD-ROM with it because DVD's only require a 1x drive to play, it's only Data DVD's that benefit from higher speeds and in my experience these DVD writers don't have terribly impressive CD-R speeds.

 

[joemamma]

oops, not raid drive, i meant 'utilize the raid connector with my hard drives'

i already have two hard drives on one ide channel and two optical drives on another ide channel...both of which aren't the raid one....so can i just plug a dvdr drive into the raid channel and get it to work?

 

[DieHardware]

Originally posted by: TheCorm
So if he moved the two hard drives to the RAID IDE connectors but wanted to just use it as a normal IDE controller he would have to reformat?

If this is so then the quickest way would be to replace either your DVD-ROM or CD-Writer with the DVD-Writer. Personally I would replace the DVD-ROM with it because DVD's only require a 1x drive to play, it's only Data DVD's that benefit from higher speeds and in my experience these DVD writers don't have terribly impressive CD-R speeds.

No, but let's say he's using Win2k and the Highpoint controller was never enabled for installation (or anytime later), he'd have to go into the MB's BIOS enable the controller...then boot to windows and load the drivers...then shutdown and move the H/ODDs to the controller's connectors...then boot and enter the controller's menu screen at the prompt and setup the drives.

 

[pspada]

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe the RAID connectors support CD and DVD drives in non-raid configuration. So leave your hard drives where they are, connect your CD and DVD drives to the raid connectors, and that leaves you the 2ndary IDE controller for the new device(s).

 

[fell8]

I reiterate:

The easiest thing to do is simply set the new optical drive to "slave" and attach it to one of the IDE channels with an optical drive already attached. No drivers or reformatting required, although software will be required to utilize writing capabilities (such drives often include appropriate software). Good luck.

 

[pspada]

Originally posted by: fell8
I reiterate:

The easiest thing to do is simply set the new optical drive to "slave" and attach it to one of the IDE channels with an optical drive already attached. No drivers or reformatting required, although software will be required to utilize writing capabilities (such drives often include appropriate software). Good luck.

In my experience, you have a master and slave on each IDE channel. Since he already has 2 hard drives on the primary IDE channel, and 2 optical (CD and DVD) drives connected to the secondary IDE channel, how is he supposed to connect it? Via telepathy, or perhaps magic?

Hard drives connected to the RAID won't boot properly unless configured for raid, at least on the mobo's I've used.

 

[DieHardware]

Originally posted by: pspada
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe the RAID connectors support CD and DVD drives in non-raid configuration. So leave your hard drives where they are, connect your CD and DVD drives to the raid connectors, and that leaves you the 2ndary IDE controller for the new device(s).

Some controller's BIOS won't load without a HDD present.

 

[DieHardware]

Originally posted by: pspada

Originally posted by: fell8
I reiterate:

The easiest thing to do is simply set the new optical drive to "slave" and attach it to one of the IDE channels with an optical drive already attached. No drivers or reformatting required, although software will be required to utilize writing capabilities (such drives often include appropriate software). Good luck.

In my experience, you have a master and slave on each IDE channel. Since he already has 2 hard drives on the primary IDE channel, and 2 optical (CD and DVD) drives connected to the secondary IDE channel, how is he supposed to connect it? Via telepathy, or perhaps magic?

Hard drives connected to the RAID won't boot properly unless configured for raid, at least on the mobo's I've used.

Not with any of the onboard controllers (Highpoint or Promise) I've setup.

 

[joemamma]

Originally posted by: DieHardware

No, but let's say he's using Win2k and the Highpoint controller was never enabled for installation (or anytime later), he'd have to go into the MB's BIOS enable the controller...then boot to windows and load the drivers...then shutdown and move the H/ODDs to the controller's connectors...then boot and enter the controller's menu screen at the prompt and setup the drives.

does this mean if i'm using winxp i don't need the highpoint controller drivers? also does this mean i have to reformat if i move existing os'es on my hard drives to the raid channel

and also, does a raid controller mean you must have hard drives on it? cos this one i have came with highpoint contoller drivers. i am confused now.

 

[fell8]

Since he already has 2 hard drives on the primary IDE channel, and 2 optical (CD and DVD) drives connected to the secondary IDE channel, how is he supposed to connect it? Via telepathy, or perhaps magic?

Oops, missed the post where he described that setup. I just figured he had one device on each channel. My advice then is don't touch your other drives, leave the new one "master" and plug it into one of the unused IDE connectors. Again, no drivers or reformat needed.

Most RAID controllers will work without enabling RAID. Believe me, I had a hell of a time getting the RAID feature enabled on my neighbor's PC, it wanted to work as a just straight-up IDE controller.

 

[fell8]

Okay, you might need the Highpoint drivers, but if so they will be quick and painless to install. It'll instruct you to insert the disk and click the button. Seconds later, it'll be done.

 

[DieHardware]

Originally posted by: joemamma

does this mean if i'm using winxp i don't need the highpoint controller drivers?

They might be built in. In any case get the controller's driver disk ready and follow the directions in your MB's manual or the ones you quoted.

also does this mean i have to reformat if i move existing os'es on my hard drives to the raid channel

Only if your going to use RAID.