Primary, Secondary, Third, Fourth IDE....

[Naja]

Ok, Here's a question that I've had for a while--I just haven't gotten around to asking it.

Everything works fine, but in my BIOS the drives are listed as such:

Primary-undetected
Secondary-undetected
Third master-120g HD
Third Slave-80g HD
Fourth Master-CD-R
Fourth slave-DVD-Rom

Like I said: Everything works fine.

The 2 HDs are on one IDE cable and the 2 optical drives are on one IDE cable. And I am using the Asus cables that came with the board. The MB accepts raid and sata, but these are all setup traditionally.

I realize that things should be listed from primary on down and not starting at Third master.

As far as I can tell the IDE slots in my MB are full and correct. It's an Asus P4C800Deluxe.

I'm just curious if anybody knows why they are listed this way, and if there's any way to correct it?

TIA

[KHT]

I see that you have a Nicklock HD Selector. I`ve never used one but assume it may act as a controller thereby making the drives appear undetected by the bios on the Primary IDE channel.

Tom`s Hardware (http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20010727/index.html) has a good article.

[Naja]

Hi KHT,

Thanx for the pointer to the article.

They missed one point though: both drives CAN see each other, if the user wants them to. Nicklock allows any "configuration", so to speak.

"Although it might have been useful to include a setting that lets you choose both drives, there is probably a good reason why NickLock only allows you to select between single drives or none."

By "Enabling/Disabling this Device" either drive can be seen by the current OS. In other words, I f you boot up on drive/OS (A) then drive (B) will show by default. Once you disable drive (B) thru its properties--it disappears and becomes invisible/inaccessible until its Enabled again, and visa versa with (B) to (A).

Anyway, I just hooked up the nicklock selector about 9 days ago, and the BIOS listing was the same before that. So, that's not it, BUT:

Thanx for the thought!

[Confused]

You don't have any serial HD's installed.
Chas

[Naja]

That's correct--I don't. I assumed it would list the same regardless. I'll look in the BIOS, but that's a good answer. I never even considered that!

Thanx!

On a side note (been trying to figure this one out for a little while):
Does that mean the I can put 4 HDs in this pc? 2 sata and 2 IDE.

[Confused]

Originally posted by Naja
On a side note (been trying to figure this one out for a little while):
Does that mean the I can put 4 HDs in this pc? 2 sata and 2 IDE.
Yes. Actually six drives. One each on the SATA connectors and 2 each on the IDE connectors.

In theory you could have 6 HD's without any optical drives. Or you could have 2 HD's on the SATA and then any combination of 4 HD's or opticals on the IDE connections.

If your OS is on one of the SATA drives I believe you have to change the BIOS to boot from SCSI first.
Chas

[Naja]

Thanx, Confused. I've got to have my optical drives, but 4 HDs is more than I'll ever need-->even at today's prices!