Hi im building myself a new pc and hav just bought a asus a7v333 mboard and a xp 1800 and 512 ddr 2700 mem and hav 2 hard drives and 2 plex writers and a pioneer a03 and a liteon dvd reader as this mb board has raid built in what in ure opinion would be the best way to configure all my ide's ?

thanks

Install a PCI IDE controller and put the 2 Plex writers as masters on each of the two controllers. Put the two hard drives as masters on each of the onboard IDE controllers. Put the Pioneer A03 as slave on the PCI card Primary controller and the Liteon DVD-ROM as slave on the onboard IDE primary controller.

This way whether you are burning from the hard drives or the DVD-ROM to the Plextors the readers and burners will be seperate controllers. Also if you burning from the hard drives or the DVD-ROM to the Pioneer they will also be on seperate controllers.

Thanks for ure reply , but the board already has a RAID built in and im not sure how all that works etc as ive not assembled it all yet, but im assuming it will be ide 1 2 3 4 so do i just treat id's 3,4 as though they were an ide control card ??

thanks

What keymaster is saying is to put your HDs on the raid controller. One on each IDE channel.

Put the Plextors on the PCI IDE controller, also one on each channel.. and then finally put the A03 and Lite-on DVD also one on each controller, using the motherboards standard primary and secondary controllers.

This would be the best setup, which is what your asked for. You could get away with putting the Plextors, lite-on and A03 all on the primary and secondary channels, but it would not be the best setup.

Yep i understand now but what i meant is , as the mine has a built in raid card which of the four ide controllers would be the raid part , im just assuming 3 4 would be and i expect it will most probally say in the manual when i get it (hopefully tuesday) but was just asking for some advise b4 i start taking out all the bits and bobs in this pc ,

On a second question bit off topic but in ure opinion would i be best to do a fresh install of xp or could i just take my drives out and put them in my new pc when built ??

thanks :tup: much appreicated

Channels "3" & "4" are indeed your RAID IDE channels on the mobo REDBULL.

As regards the frersh install of Win XP the choice is yours really, if you decide to leave it as it is then you need to remove any of your existing mobo/O/B sound etc drivers/CDRom drives (if you are changing any of them) from Windows in safe mode before you fit your new Asus mobo and the various drives.

I myself would start over again but then I enjoy pratting about just to make sure I've got as perfect a system set-up as is possible. :D But what I am saying is you do not really have to if you don't want too.

I would also recommend doing a fresh install.

OK cheers guys ill keep u informed on how it all goes , hopefully all ok lol , i remember building this pc and hitting the power button for nothing to happen so i cant really say when i should hav it all up and running but thanks for all ure help :tup:

Well its always a good rule of thum to install only the bare neccesities and power up the first time
CPU, RAM, AGP, FD if it beeps and you get VID output add the HD and try again..keep adding things one at a time then if you have a prob you know where to look

What Hoss said there REDBULL was top advice.

I always do this myself as Hoss said it's so much easier to find any faults if they occur. It always amazes me how many PC-builders with loads of experience still rely on the "bung it all in and hope it works" method! It's a damn site harder to try and trace where faults are coming from that way.

Hope it all works out for you m8. :)

If you are plannig on using the secondary channels off your raid controller make sure you can connect somthing other than a hard drive to it. Some raid controllers will not work with optical drives.

Just my 2cents