P4P800-E Deluxe...which IDE connectors can I use

[EFK]

I've got a P4P800-E Deluxe board coming this week and was skimming the
manual before it arrives. I'll be using a raid array for two IDE disks.
The board shows two IDE connectors (primary and secondary) and another
Primary connector for the Raid disks.

I'll install two HDDs on the Primary Raid connector as a master and slave
drive. Question is, for more IDE drives (DVD, etc.) can I use the other
Primary IDE connector (the NON-Raid one), or does the Primary Raid
connector map to that one? In which case, I could only use the Secondary
connector.

Simply put, can I use both Primary IDE connectors at the same time? One
for Raid, one not?

Thanks

Eric

 

[Bill Smith]

The primary connector for raid disks will use the 2 ide drives you
have for your raid array (master / slave config only). Although this
is not an "optimal" config, it works. This connector is mapped to the
promise control or the via controler and is separate from the standard
onboard ide connectors. It will probably only have the single
connector. The intel primary and secondary connectors can use whatever
else you want to connect, be it ide drives, cd-rom or dvd or cdrw or
dvdr.