PCI IDE Cards

Hi,

I use add-on IDE controller cards as needed.

I try to purchase motherboards with built-in auxilliary IDE controllers, such as the ABIT KT7A-R or KR7A-R.

I set up my systems as follows:
C: (boot drive) as Primary master on the Fastest IDE controller on the PC.
(Many PCI IDE cards CANNOT operate CD drives.)
If the system will have more hard drives, they are added onto the same controller in sequence.

NOTE: for most PCI IDE cards, you need to set the boot sequence in BIOS settings so that SCSI is the primary (first) boot device.
(This is the BIOS default for a plug-in drive controller.)
(Don't know how this works if you have a SCSI card installed.)

Then, I install the CD-ROM drive jumpered as slave on the motherboards primary IDE controller.
If there will be a CD-RW drive, it is installed as the Secondary master on the motherboard IDE controller.

A DVD or other IDE removeable media drive is installed as slave on the motherboard secondary.

On my primary system, the drives are as follows.
HDD0 (C:) on RAID controller as primary master
HDD1 on RAID controller as primary slave
RAID controller secondary is connected to a Hot-Swap bay.

CD-ROM on motherboard as primary slave
DVD and CD-RW on motherboard secondary

I have used both Promise and High-Point IDE controllers with no problems.

A peer did post that there is a conflict between 1 specific Promise card and Nvidia G-Force AGP cards.

Chas

Jesus I thought I was reading my system specs for a moment there, you been sneaking into my house while I'm at work.

Just wanted to add the Promise cards handle CD drives without any trouble, tried it out with both CD-ROM & CD-RW hooked up to seeif there would be any performance gains or conflicts but all ran fine, no noticable differences, should've run some benchmarks but didn't think of it at the time.