P4B533-E: Best HD/CD/DVD configuration question

[Martin Hirsch]

I have a P4B533-E with a Intel P4 2.26R533 running XP pro SP1.

The drives I want installed:

2 Maxtor 160gb, ATA133, 8 meg cache.
1 Pioneer 16x DVD drive
1 Verbatum 48x CD burner
1 HP 4x CD burner
1 IBM 60gb HD, ATA100.

I don't want any raid configurations. I don't have the raid controller set
up now. I tried it with one HD and it seems to take a long time to find the
installed drive at boot up.

I currently have one 160 Maxtor installed as the bootable HD. It is using
the PCI ATA133 controller card that came with the drive. The CD and DVD
drives are hooked to the primary and secondary MB controller card.

If the onboard raid controller is used as a standard controller how would I
set that up and is there a way to make it boot quicker.

My case has two hard drive indicator LED's, is there a way to hook both up
for each controller on the MB. Right now one LED is hooked to the MB and the
other to the PCI ata133 controller card.

Thanks, Martin

 

[DanO]

Martin,
You're really missing the mark by ignoring the FatTrak133 Onboard
Promise Raid Controller, IMHO. If I were you, I'd set the system up as
follows:

320GB Raid0/Strip Set with:
Raid IDE1 Master = 160GB Maxtor
Raid IDE2 Master = 160GB Maxtor

Then use the standard Intel IDE ports for everything else (forget the add-in
PCI card, so your LED woes will vanish.) You'll need to perform a full
reinstall and you'll need to have a floppy with the Asus Promise
FastTrak133Lite drivers ready for when WinXP asks you to press F6 during the
very first BLUE screen portion of the installation. This is because XP does
not know about the Promise FastTrak133 as Mass Storage Device.

You'll be amazed at how fast a RAID setup really is. I've been using Raid0
for at least 4+ years and love the extra performance. Once a RAID set has
been configured in the Promise BIOS, the detection is much quicker.

Alternatively, you could try one of the modded BIOS's for our beloved
P4B533-E that turns the onboard Promise card into the exact same add-in
ATA133 card that Maxtor bundles with their drives. Here is a link
http://www.anycities.com/user/mainboards/asus/asus.html

Good luck!

DanO