I have recently seen it suggested that the best way to ensure stability in a system is to just have your C drive on the pri connector and the dvd rw on the sec connector.ie no slave connections.
I wonder what others think of this, ie would it really make any difference.
If it does than to add further hard drives and optical drives a PCI Card would be needed. I would not want any raid just the plain simple ability to add more Hard Drives and if possible optical ie maybe a DVD/CD Rom. Any advice as where such a card can be obtained.
Many thanks, Ron.
komplett do pci ide cards ( i bought a 133 card about 6 months ago )
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=22908&t=2051&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=15&GrpID=8&s=pl
for the non raid cards look here
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/kl.asp?AvdID=1&CatID=15&GrpID=8&t=2051&l=2
[This message has been edited by Gary MacKenzie (edited 21 July 2003).]
Thanks Gary. I have used Komplett a great deal, there is something about them that I like, especially the way you can track it almost every inch of the way.
I have ordered the Promise Ultra 133.
I had looked at the ones that RL Supplies do. much cheaper but??
Thanks, Ron.
PCI IDE cards are one of the most 'unappreciated' pieces of kit currently available. The obvious use is for adding extra disk drives but consider also
1. Making all your disk drives Masters - that way the IDE data cable is not being shared between two data streams as it is when you have Master and Slave and both are transferring data.
2. Making all your disk drives Masters - makes life so much easier if you are using caddies.
3. Breathing new life into old computers. Motherboard bios in old computers will only recognise a maximum size of hard disk. 8Mb and 32Mb were 'cutoff' points up to about 1995 and 1998. The IDE card has no such problem so, for example, a Pentium 150 computer can (provided it has a PCI slot) be given one of todays big hard disks and fully access it. Won't mean much to CV's Dual Xeon freaks but lots of schools and colleges (yes, and the general public too) rely on their older computers and an IDE card can be a lifeline when the smallest hard disk you can buy is 40Gb.
Ray Liffen
As mentioned previously I have got the Promise Ultra 133 TX2 PCI Card. I will be connecting all my drives as masters on a single cable, ie no slaves.
Now I have come to a point of what I call, being left in the air by the information in a manual.
I will installing the OS on this PC soon. It is XP Pro. I have posted about this in the general forum. Here is the problem.
If I install the Card and connect to the 120GB HD which is housed in a Mobile Rack, so it is the Rack actually connected to the PCI Card, the manual says.
Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or Raid driver.
As I am not useing SCSI or Raid I would not have thaought that you needed to press F6.
But I notice later, under confirming windows XP Installation it mentions SCSI controllers in connection with the Promice Card.
So do you have to press F6?
The other thing is when installing after you have installed XP.
This seems a simpler method. But it does not mention if you do in this case connect the hard drive to the card and do the installation all in one go? As in the method above.
Help on this will be greatly appreciated. It seems that some one you have installed this card ok.
Thanks, Ron.
you only need to worry about installing the drivers if you are using the addon card as the boot device.
if you are not , then you can install drivers (if needed ) once xp is installed.