P4C800-E DELUXE Hard drive question

[GB]

I am almost ready to make final decisions on items for my new computer I
plan to build.
Something I would like to be sure on?
I can build this computer with the P4C800-E DELUXE mainboard and use one
Western Digital Raptor 36GB SATA hard drive in the computer as a boot drive?
Question two is, will I need to load any Serial ATA drivers if this is the
only hard drive in the machine or are the Serial ATA drivers in Windows XP?

 

[Lasse Lundberg]

nope if u connect it to the southbridge sata controller you will not need
any drivers

if u connect it to the promise sata/pata controller you will need drivers

BTW the raptor is a fine disk, do consider buying another one and put them
in raid 0 or raid 10 on the promise controller it is just so much faster
then

Lasse
p4c800-e deluxe [email protected] in sync with ram hyperx3500 1gb
2xraptor in raid 0 on onboard promise
4xwd 250 gb in raid 0 on promise sx4000 with 256 mb ram
2xmaxtor 300gb on standart controller
creative 5900U
audigy2
everything is water chilled incl hd's

 

[Paul]

Yes I would agree with Lasse re a RAID setup, but you will probably need to
install the drivers during XP setup for your disks to be recognised.

I have just installed 2 x WD Raptors both 36Gb SATA 150 10000rpm disks,
working in a RAID 0 setup on the intel ICH5R controller. The thing to watch
out for is you must set up the RAID 0 first using the ctrl-I command and
it's more than likely that when you then install Windows XP it will complain
that it can't find any installed drives. You must first create a floppy
with the Intel Drivers on it (the Accelerator ones) and then when in XP
setup press F6 to execute a request to install the drivers - after that you
are cruising. The same thing happens if you connect drives to the Promise
controller, this time create a floppy with the Promise Fastrack drivers on
it and again execute an F6 install.

My setup is 7 days old and is flying!

Hope this helps - Paul


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[DaveW]

Yes, you can boot a single Raptor.

The SATA driver is included in SP1 for Win XP. If you're not installing a
current OEM copy of XP that INCLUDES SP1, you'll have to manually install
the SATA driver from a FLOPPY during the first stages of the XP install.
(You'll have to copy the SATA driver from the ASUS Installation CD onto a
floppy on another machine first.)

 

[GB]

Thanks for the replies.
This is also some additional suggestions I was looking for.
At first on my wish list I had two of the SATA WD drives and was planning on
running the in a Raid configuration but was confused on how to set it up and
what Raid configuration to use.
This will be my third self built computer but the last one I built was about
four years ago and things have progressed a lot since then.
When I built my last one (Pentium III Coppermine / CUBX Asus MB) I went
along about six weeks using it and discovered a post in news group about the
CMD ATA66 driver so I got to searching around and found the driver on the
ASUS MB CD. When the driver was installed the computer was much faster but
it also increased the boot time by about 4x.
The added expense of another drive is not a problem at this point in time
and I want to make use of all the features of this MB.
The operating system will be Win XP Pro w/ SP1.
Another thing I get confused about is the Intel and Promise controllers.
Which one is what?
Let me see if I am correct on this.... the Intel controller is for a single
Serial ATA boot drive or a two drive set up, one being boot and the other
storage?
The Promise controller is for the Raid configuration and if I use two hard
drives they will share the operating system/file system so the information
can be loaded over two drive channels for speed?

 

[Paul]

GB

Both can run Raid 0 setups, if you are planning to install your OS on a RAID
0 setup, you would be better off doing this on the Intel ICH5R as it's
quicker than the Promise - the Promise still interfaces with the PCI Bus and
thus it's transfer speeds can be limited. I have 2 x WD Raptor's running as
RAID 0 together with 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7's (2 x 160Gb) also as RAID 0
but on the Promise controller. My DVD Writer is on the Primary IDE Master
and my DVD Rom on the Secondary IDE Master. I still have the option to fit
two more IDE devices (HDD's if I so desire) to the slave connectors. Reason
for two RAID setups? - I'm setting up my system with NLE in mind. When I
have got over the shock of aquiring this setup, I will be buying two more
HDD's - and will install them as a PATA pair to mirror the large volume in a
RAID 0+1 setup, but not just yet.

The Mobo comes with the required ATA connectors and also the required power
adaptors also.

Hope this helps - email me if you need anything more specific - not sure
whether you have yet aquired your Asus Mobo.

Paul

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