May I have more than 4 IDE?

jalsinajalsina Caracas, Venezuela
edited July 2004 in Hardware
I have a Dell Dimension 8200 2Ghz with four EIDE on the motherboard (and BIOS handling those IDE ports). I can use ATA-100 hard drives connected to those IDE ports, limiting my hard disk capacity to 137 GB.
I recently purchased a 160 GB hard drive which I could run with software under Windows XP.

But since my four IDE ports are being used with four devices (1 HD, 1 DVD burner, 1 CD burner, 1 ZIP), I need an extra card.
I wonder if I can install a PCI to ATA-133 card with two extra IDE ports, and have a total of six available. Would this conflict the BIOS total four IDE?

If this is possible can you tell me what brand of card could I purchase, or all are about the same?

If four IDE is the limit, then can I use a RAID with only one hard drives, or with two different size drives?

Comments

  • yaggayagga Havn't you heard? ... New
    edited July 2004
    buy a pci ata or raid card, they will not conflict, but they may add a few seconds and/or another screen detecting the devices before the os loads. Make sure the drive connected to the adapter card is switched to the first drive in the bios if it is the boot drive. The 137gb barrier will be lifted if you buy a card that isn't an antique.
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