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SCSI and IDE hard drives and installation


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ok, i'll start off explaining my problem and then my idea, but since i don't know how it will work i need some help, i've googled it but haven't found what i'm looking for.

My Super S2DGU motherboard has ATA/33, and i don't like that, so i want to use SCSI for my master HDD that boots windows and installs programs and whatnot.

1) how would i go about installing windows on a SCSI hard drive?

2) how can i add IDE hard drives without interference of master drives?

i saw some IDE to USB cables, and thought about getting a USB 2.0 card with internal ports and taking that route, but im not sure about it all. i know its possible and all, but i wanted to ask.

the soundcard is ISA, the graphics card is AGP, the ethernet card is PCI. i have 3 available PCI slots to get the job done.

any help is greatly appreciated. i wont be able to actually do anything until i get the PSU and case for it, but it always helps to know things in advance.

my case and PSU are already picked out, its just a matter of finding out if an order can be altered or not to save me some money.

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It would be better if you first go and find your PSU...

You would see that there is an option "Boot from SCSI" in your BIOS. The onboard SCSI controller is most likely seen by XP so you don’t need extra driver disks in combination with F6 when you install XP.

So, that problem is solved. For just a few bucks you can buy SATA or PATA add-on cards. I won’t use the USB 1.1 ports for USB to IDE if I was you ;).

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i was thinking of running them to a USB 2.0 card with an internal port, routing a hub internally, and having them all go into the hub, then into the USB 2.0 :yes: [slightly complicated, but it would solve the speed issue by a longshot] ;) [i may just do that for kicks too]

but alright, that clears that up.

once i get past the booting off SCSI, i can just stack the hard drives on the IDE doing just master/slave and they'd just appear as more drives no?

i wouldn't want to boot off 33mb/s..i can live with 80 though.

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"once i get past the booting off SCSI, i can just stack the hard drives on the IDE doing just master/slave and they'd just appear as more drives no?"

Yes, you are right about that.

But that USB to IDE, naaa :no: , forget about it, spending more money on that then a PATA ad-on card. There are also cards with VIA chipset that have one PATA port and 2 SATA ports, they are cheap, like 15 US$ and work well.

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Don't go for IDE-USB adapters. you are asking for a world of pain...

Just grab yourself a SATA PCI card, and if you must use PATA drives get some PATA converters, they work great for HDDs... hell, the first few WD raptors had a SATA to PATA built into the drive, they were PATA drives at heart.

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how am i asking for a world of pain? i've got it all mapped out...the only reason i'm not going SATA is because once i do, i'll have a bunch of adapters left over when i go all out, and the adapters wont be worth much of anything. also, if i boot SCSI, and have two internals go USB, i'll have faster transfer rate, and i wont have to worry about jumpers, or SATA setting or installing. it does sound like a lot to work out, and it may end up being a little pricey, but i'd rather have it...

its just the same when you argue onboard graphics and a graphics card...its user preference.

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SATA and jumpers? bonestonne, let me tell you something, you don’t have jumpers with SATA, not even on the add-on cards. But go ahead if you like to spend speed (60MB/s MAX! theoretically) and money on a slower system ;)...

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the system is 8 years old either way, so speed isn't exactly its middle name.

also, this system may run linux actually, now that i found an OSS linux audio editing program.

we'll see when i get case/PSU, because i'll be making a video of the build.

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well, my only problem is that if i don't go USB, i'll have booting issues if i do use linux, like i've had in the past, multiple IDE drives crash my computer, this going into an endless reboot cycle because it fails to load several things properly [this was before i knew enough about computers so i never took notice as to what].

i'll probably end up dual booting windows/linux and having windows just because it wouldn't be that bad...if i had a high enough capacity SCSI drive i'd triple boot with darwin, but eh...i don't think 9 gigs is enough for that, even if windows and linux are really small. i'll have to test it sometime.

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well, my only problem is that if i don't go USB, i'll have booting issues if i do use linux, like i've had in the past, multiple IDE drives crash my computer, this going into an endless reboot cycle

Replace your PSU with one that can handle the load. this is a telltale sign of an overloaded PSU.

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i've used two HDD's in this computer for a long time with no problem. its not an issue of power, its an issue of linux. linux doesn't like NTFS partitioned slave drives, which is what my slave was partitioned as, and what most of my drives are. if it was a FAT16 or 32 format, there would be no problem.

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If it is an issue with the slave hack, why use slaves at all?

I haven't had a drive as slave in a computer since 1999 or so. Master/slave is a horrid hack that never should have been implemented IMHO.

Besides, PCI PATA controllers are cheap as dirt now anyways. I got a couple sil0680 based ones myself just laying around incase I need them.

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You don't seem to understand.

most motherboards (even old ones) come with 2 PATA channels, some come with 4. Each one of those can take a master and slave drive. I simply never put a slave on any. When I need more drives in a system then there are channels, I add more with PCI cards, one channel per drive I use. A lot of the time I don't even have hard drives hooked to the included motherboard channels because the add in cards don't usually support booting from anything but the hard drives on them but the system BIOS does for the PATA channels that are on the motherboard.

I have had systems with two PATA cards in them and four PATA channels on the motherboard. That gave me a total of eight PATA channels to work with, and I had eight drives (optical, zip, and 6 hard drives) in the system.

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