Chris Wilson Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 I have a large SATA drive I want to add to an oldish Asus m/board that currently has 2 W/Digital drives in a RAID format on the only 2 SATA ports on the board. I want to forgo RAID and have the 3 drives in a conventional format. Can I buy a card that will allow this? I got a card that in hindsight appears to only want to work with another 2 drives in a RAID on it....As it stands I can't see, nor can my bios, the third SATA drive. Pete thinks I need a card with onboard bios to see more SATA drives? OS is Windows 2000, I want Obuntu on, or the option of more drivesapce unders Windows, from the 3rd drive. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 feck me chris, you are going all out on the IT stuff lately eh!! http://www.satacard.com/sata-ii-pci.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Geneb Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 yeah just need a sata card mate piece o piss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 A bit like the ones in the link I posted? lol post whore!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 LOL Chris, thats exactly what I've done Make sure you get a PCI card and NOT a PCI-Express, there are loads more PCI-X cards than old hat PCI ones sadly. I found a nice 2 port controller card for about £18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 The trick here is to make it bootable on Chris' motherboard (sometimes boot orders can be picky and vary from m/board to m/board) AND that it's recognised by Linux. Ideally Chris wants a Bootable PCI SATA2 card with hardware RAID, or even better just a HDD Controller and no RAID BIOS at all! If that one you have Chris is no good I'll happily refund by the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 Mine (which is a Asus P4C800) is bootable. Basically I had a real PITA getting the SATA controller drivers for use with the Vista install, but the RAID0 configuration was a peice of piss, I took out the IDE drives and then eventually went though the OS install booting from CD. A controller card can be added at a later date with the extra drives. Does he want priority given to the card rather than the BIOS on the mobo? May be tricky, I guess he can get drivers to install the OS with the card and then try adding other drivers in a non RAID config onto the mobo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 Current scenario (as I understand it) 2 x onboard SATA1 drives have been configured as Stripe running Win2k Has a new SATA2 300Gb drive, would like to use this as bootable. Really would rather not reinstall, but would like to install Linux and boot onto the new HDD. My thoughts are to repartition the stripe down to as small as poss to fit on just one drive, then ghost it to the new HDD. Break the SATA, and ghost back to just one of the drives. That gives you one HDD with the original drive on (but may not be happy no longer booting from RAID and give BSOD on boot?). Possible issues with Ghost not recognising the SATA card, maybe use an IDE to SATA interface changer to put onto the mobo - I'll get you one Chris. He can then link the new 300Gb drive onto the mobo and install onto that, then finally stick his old spare drive back onto the RAID SATA card and just use for storage not bootable. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 I'd have thought the 2 disks in a stripe would have been quicker for the OS drive as you have 2 x the IO? What type of drive are they? For example, with mine I have 2 x 36gig SATA 10k rpm Raptors which will be used for OS and programs, and then a 500GB SATA2 (7200rpm) storage drive for music, pictures etc. How about backing up the data you have currently onto the new 300gb HD (whilst acting as a 3rd storage disk) and reinstalling both OS's from fresh and having the dual boot all on the stripe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 I'd have thought the 2 disks in a stripe would have been quicker for the OS drive as you have 2 x the IO? What type of drive are they? For example, with mine I have 2 x 36gig SATA 10k rpm Raptors which will be used for OS and programs, and then a 500GB SATA2 (7200rpm) storage drive for music, pictures etc. Sounds perfect set up you have there. However, Chris doesn't want the restrictions and inflexibility of not being able to swap his drives about without the risk of destroying all his data. Also the new SATA2 with AHCI enabled is damn fast compared to my old SATA1 stripe. (If of course AHCI is supported in your BIOS and OS). How about backing up the data you have currently onto the new 300gb HD (whilst acting as a 3rd storage disk) and reinstalling both OS's from fresh and having the dual boot all on the stripe? Good plan, but he doesn't want to use RAID. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Wilson Posted January 31, 2007 Author Share Posted January 31, 2007 My minder (Pete) seesm to be doing a good job, it's hard to tell as it's all gone way over my head. Please continue the good work for me Pete, you're "all doing very well" Thanks for all the input, wish I really understood it all properly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 I'm starting to think I should just come over there and play with it for an evening. I just don't want to be responsible for trashing your RAID and losing all your data . If you make sure you've got all your backups done then I'll see about dropping over one night if you like with lots of software, drivers and hopefully a wheelbarrow of luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Wilson Posted January 31, 2007 Author Share Posted January 31, 2007 And beer? You WILL bring beer, won't you? I have now lost the printers. I get an error that the print subsystem is unavailable. Getting close to a backup of e-mail and stuff and a full re install with a none RAID set up. I'll let you know when i raise the white flag, thanks Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Getting close to a backup of e-mail and stuff and a full re install with a none RAID set up. I know it's a PITA...but it's the sensible thing to do. I'm going to get you a tshirt for your birthday: http://www.lushtshirts.com/images/products/beer_monster.jpg http://www.lushtshirts.com/images/products/beer_monster.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvershark44 Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Would it not be easier to swap out the motherboard with one that supports 4 SATA ports? Then you avoid any problems with boot sequences and 3rd party raid cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 If he has an old MOBO he would probably have to change memory, cpu, possibly gfx card to use with a new one.. too much pissing around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvershark44 Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 why? If anything he will get a cheaper deal that way, not to mention better stability. Older motherboards such as amd 939 boards can still be had and youll get yesturdays top spec boards (ample for chris's needs) for about 20% of their original market value. Just get the same spec board but with 4 ports instead of 2, simple. Should cost you anywhere from £15-40 depending on how new/old your current system is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 He said he has an OLD Asus mobo (maybe a P4?), so if he got a new mobo the chip designs have changed, memory speeds differ, and he may require a new gfc card as most new things are PCI-X now instead of AGP... thats what I'm trying to explain. Got it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvershark44 Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 He said he has an OLD Asus mobo (maybe a P4?), so if he got a new mobo the chip designs have changed, memory speeds differ, and he may require a new gfc card as most new things are PCI-X now instead of AGP... thats what I'm trying to explain. Got it? yes i understand what you say, and im saying you can still buy top spec P4 boards from yesturyear which wont require you to change any parts appart from the motherboard and they are cheap as no one wants them. Got it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 .. ah you mean like an old mobo which has more SATA controllers? I'd just get a multi controller card for £25, a lot less faffing about Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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