Hi All,

I want to run more optical disk drives in my existing system. Since running ODD's on add-in controller cards seems to be problematic, I'm thinking about going another route: Connecting 4 ODD's to the motherbord IDE controller and adding a PCI bus IDE controller card to run all of my hard drives off of.

My system's built on a dual Athlon motherboard (MSI K7D Master L) which has two 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots, so I'm leaning towards using an ACARD AEC-6897, even though I won't be running RAID, because it's the only reasonably priced controller I've found so far with a 64-bit PCI interface.

What do you think about this idea? Does it make sense? Any of you folks done something like this before? Is there a different controller you'd recommend? Do you know of any problems I should watch out for?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Your input will be most appreciated.

Elwood

I don't know anything about the PCI card you propose but your idea is sound & I've done it at various times on both my PCs.

I think there will be many others here that have done the same.

You'll probably just need to change the bootup sequence to SCSI in the BIOS.

Thanks for responding TimC!

This is an IDE controller, but I'd still have to change the boot sequence to SCSI first?

Elwood

I already moved all my HDDs on a PCI IDE controller, but you need to check on the controller specifications if this card supports boot.

If the card don't support boot, then you need to connect at least one IDE drive to the mainboard.

Alternatively, you can do a fresh install on a s-ata HDD, using the onboard s-atra controllers, and use all IDE slots for optical devices.

Beware: if you move a HDD in which is already installed windows on the PCI card, windows will detect a major change in hardware configuration, and probably will require again activation from microsoft website.

If you install a new s-ata disc and do a fresh install, anyway, you need to do windows activation too

@geno888: The controller I'm looking at does support boot.

Regarding activation, I'm still running Win 2k Pro, so no activation is required.

Many thanks for your response! It's just what I was hoping to hear.

Elwood

YES--It's Perfect...Change that PCI ATA in Bios to run as a SCSI in the BIOS..
Buy a NON Raid one because some raid uns cause problems when not in use for raid....If your Mobo takes n uses PCI ATA 133 get that un.
1st HD (master) 2nd (slave)...Second cable, same order..
If you got onboard SATTA, put a HDD on that un use it for the OS...If Not, try n use the First IDE for the HDD as Master...That way you should Run Trouble FREE...

You're welcome