ATA Serielle 2 Controller

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lori
  • Start date Start date
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Lori

I have a Raid Serial ATA 100 Controller on new PC. Right now, my hard drive
and CD are hooked up to the Standard IDE controller. I intend to purchase
new drives for Raid controller.

Each time I start windows, the Raid utility comes up in XP (running XP
Professional). Do I need to disable this in bios since I don't have
anything attached to it, or is it OK to leave enabled for future use. Will
leaving this enabled hurt performance or interfer with other hardware?
 
Lori

You'd be best advised to disable the RAID set-up utility in BIOS while not
in use, although it's likely to become more of an annoyance rather than a
problem.

Just remember to enable it within the BIOS when you want to install the new
drives.

Hope that helps.
Pete
 
Thank you! I would imagine I should uninstall the XP Raid software utility
that was installed when I ran the CD to install the motherboard chipset
drivers also or should I just leave it? It is listed as a shortcut in my
program startup folder. If I attach the drives later, I would assume that I
would just rerun that part of the setup?

Also, I have a floppy drive connected that I am not really using, since I am
booting from CD. My Hard drive is running in Ultra ATA100 mode on the
Primary Controller and my DVD CD/RW drive is Master on Secondary Controller
running at Ultra DMA Mode 33 (I think).

Is the floppy drive slowing down my system? Should I just disable the
onboard controller, or do I physically need to disconnect it and change
floppy drive A to "None" in Bios?

That should do it for me--so far everything is running pretty well. Thanks
again for the reply.
 
My pleasure Lori

You haven't given any details of the actual hardware involved... Shop bought
or home-build, mainboard model and manufacturer etc, whether the RAID
controller is a integrated or a separate card... but here goes...

Uninstalling the RAID utility would be advisable if it deals solely with a
RAID array. For a start its absence will provide a prompt to you to enable
the RAID controller in the BIOS when you come to installing the new drives.
(By the way, the short-cut in the start-up folder will be why it keeps
appearing when Windows starts.)

As for the floppy drive, leave well alone. You're not going to improve
system performance by disabling it. Better to have it there for the rare
occasion that it may becomes necessary or useful.

Hope that helps
Pete.
--------------------------
 
This is a home built PC. The MB is an ABIT NF7-S V2.0 with Althalon XP 2500
Processor 1.8GH. The Raid controller is built in (not separate card).
There are 2 settings in the BIOS. One to enable the Raid controller and
another to enable RAID Bios. I loaded the NForce drivers from the CD that
came with it.Both were enabled by default. I have a converter that I can
hook up to any DVD or hard drive capable of ATA100 speed to boost to 150 (I
have not tried this yet). My hard drive is a Western Digital 120 GB and DVD
RW is an I/O Majic. Video card is Raedon 9200 SE Stealth 80. Everything
seems to be running well.

Obviously, I am very unfamiliar with this type of hardware device. If I
chose to leave as is for now, until I do get a chance to learn a little more
about it, will it be likely to hurt or conflict with any other hardware? It
doesn't seem to be doing anything other than launching the software to
control the RAID array. I did update my BIOS, and when I did that, the RAID
controller BIOS was also updated.
 
Thanks for the hardware details Lori,

The advice still stands.

Uninstall the RAID utility.. That start up will become annoying after a
while... Disable RAID controller in BIOS.. if the RAID BIOS setting is
separate from the RAID controller setting then disable as well, and leave
the floppy drive alone.

There should be a section in the manual on the mainboard CD which deals, at
least in some way, with RAID arrays and how to set them up.. but search
around... those manuals have a habit of being a little short on detail.

Sounds like you have a good system there to explore with.... doesn't seem
like there's any hardware conflict.. you'd know about it by now.. leaving it
alone won't hurt.. but the RAID isn't being used.. better to optimise the
BIOS settings for now.

By the way, I've never used a Hard Drive speed converter like the one you
describe but I'd be wary of using it at all, I would prefer to let the
mainboard controller determine the speed of transfer.

Hope that helps
and have fun
Pete
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