Topic: PATA PCI controller cards

[arthurhanlon]

Hi,

This is less an SME question but more a hardware question. It's being applied to an SME box so thought where else is best to post other than here.

Having had no experience with PCI IDE controllers, I am intrigued as to how they work. If I were to get one of these such cards and whack in an 80 or 120GB hard disc, do I need to have a boot disk also or will my BIOS detect that I want to use this drive (connected to card) as my boot drive? I would want this drive to be the only drive in my machine and would want to boot directly from it.

Sorry if this is a dumb question but you'll never know if you don't ask.

Cheers,

Arthur

[arthurhanlon]

Sorry to bump this post but can no-one lend any advice?

Arthur

[mbachmann]

Those (cheap) IDE controllers (i have used Promise Ultra 100 and Dawicontrol Ultra 100) are having a bios which usually do work on most of the machines i had tested - the HDDs are most often recognized. And booting is not a problem. However, a OS driver is needed and you should ensure, that the IDE Controller has a Linux driver available, e.g. like controllers with a Highpoint chipset (HPT 370/370A) from http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/bios_hpt370_370a.htm. If you are lucky you will not need a driver at all. Two Promise Ultra 100's attached IBM IDE drives were detected and usable with a Knoppix from 3.4 on without problems.

But why not use the onboard IDE port?

[arthurhanlon]

Thanks for the response, I just wasn't sure how these things worked. I've heard that most cards work flawlessly with SME.

Can't use onboard IDE as it's an old board and only supports up to 37GB with a BIOS flash.

Wouldn't be for a while though just curious as to how they worked.

Thanks again,

Arthur