PCI IDE Card

Can anyone help me with my PCI IDE card?
I have a new Gigabyte Motherboard (GA-P35-S3L) however, it only has 1 IDE slot, so I installed a new PCI IDE card (for my CD Burner), however, it only seems to recognise it as a RAID controller!
In the device manager it list it as a "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" under 'IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers'. But nothing listed under DVD/CD Rom Drives (apart from the DVD Burner which is connected to the motherboard IDE slot).
Now when I start the PC, it comes up with something about whether or not I want to access RAID Controllers before booting into windows!
Has anyone any ideas?
Thanks

 

Hi and welcome to the BBS,

To me, it seems it could be perfectly normal, the card has a RAID controller as well as an IDE controller.

If it stops for you to input "yes" or "no ", then the boot sequence in the BIOS/Startup settings will set to boot to a RAID or other type of controller before it boots to your HDD controller (SATA or the onboard IDE channel?).

Check the Boot Sequence in the BIOS settings. You should be able to set your HDD controller to before any others (or CD/DVD first, then the HDD, if you want to be able to boot to CD from the onboard IDE).

How the new IDE controller may be listed in the boot sequence may not be plainly evident. They were listed as SCSI in years past. It might be termed "other controllers ".

Matt

 

Steve, I'm not sure how to post a link to the card?

Mattman, Sorry, I may have confused you with the booting, it will boot normally,except in the process it asks you to 'press ctrl f or e' to enter the setup utility (for raid) or esc to continue normally, something it never used to do.

 

Hi, Back again,
I may have worked it out. Looking at the box it doesn't mention anything about supporting CD Rom Drives?
I suppose thats what happens when you assume the guy selling it to you knows what he's doing! Especially considering I asked for one to suit a CD Rom.
Thank you for your replies...
Cheers

 

Scruffman, an IDE controller card does support IDE CD/DVD drives (unless it is a new SATA CD/DVD drive...IDE and SATA are different animals).

Don't panic that you are being asked if you wish to "enter a RAID configuration "...not only is the card an IDE controller, it also has a RAID controller.

Look in the BIOS settings section of the motherboard manual. Find the Boot Sequence section. Look at the different options available. [If you cannot find see them, let us know, but my downloads are limited at the moment, so I would like to avoid downloading your motherboard manual if possible.]
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Manual_Model.aspx?ProductID=2597
Refer to my previous post.

Matt

 

Hi Mattman,
Yes I'm still confused.
I've looked everywhere in the BIOS to no avail, and I can usually get around in there pretty good. I even went into the RAID setup utility at startup and tried changing it to IDE, but wouldn't let me.
Even under "Computer Management - Disk Management" doesn't show it!
When it goes through the initial boot process, it goes through the step of "Detecting IDE Devices ", but can't find any?
When I looked at the Hardware information on the Motherboard CD it comes up with this... Under the heading of - SCSIAdapterit shows... Device Description:ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller

Under the heading of - hdc it shows...
Device Description:Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
So, I'm still scratching the head.
Cheers
Graham

 

You know usually one IDE slot can accomadate two IDE devices with a cable with dual connections. However, it may have only included a cable with one set of connections. Although it is common practice to use separate channels to reduce various types of conflicts from having two devices on one cable.

Anyway, usually raid controllers will come up with a boot and/or configuration menu for the controller settings. I have never tried to disable this using the controller boot up selections (because they were always on our servers and we used the raid configurations). The message usually disappears and will continue booting using your bios preferences.

Ok, now, since this is a new card and it looks like your computer detects it. ie You have a single IDE motherboard yet your Device management shows a Dual channel PCI IDE controller. What does your HDC show when the PCI IDE card is not installed? Single PCI IDE controller and primary channel? Just curious.

What Steve meant by a link (I think) is that you post a web site link referencing the exact product you ordered or you could just post the product number of what you ordered.

I don't have enough info here to make any great advice yet. I am downloading the PDF manual that mattman put a link up for. I have an HP PC that has two IDE controlers and two ATA controllers so I checked Device Manager. I don't see the Serial ATA controller as saying specifically ATA controller it only says:

 

The HDC still shows - Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller with the card removed, and unfortunately, the card only describes it being a, "PC Card Bus Cardbus" - "Multi Serial Controller Card ". Support 1mb/s or 15mb/s.
and of course - 'For the best mobile perihperal in China'.
There is no actual model or serial number on the box or card!
I'm tending to agree with Steve, I think I'll just send it back. Nothing is worth this much trouble?
Cheers.

 

That's fine Scruffman. Since I downloaded the m/b manual, I may as well point out the boot sequence. It is on page 34 (drat, now I find I have closed it, so I hope p.34 is the one). When I installed my IDE card on my...Gigabyte...motherboard, I found I needed to change the boot sequence (it has a RAID controller also, but I do not use RAID). Your boot sequence is a little different (more advanced) than mine, but I found trial and error was needed to get it to boot the way I wanted it to.

Was there a disk included with the card? I would expect you would need drivers on a floppy disk at least, in case you wanted to install Windows on a HDD running on the card's controller.

If you did not get any disks with the card, no means of identifying the controller's model, I would totally agree that it's worth is negligible.

Just a note though. If you get another IDE card, you may find the same reaction. It may require some setting-up.

Matt

 

Thanks Matt,
No, it didn't come with any drivers unfortunately, so I have sent it back (with a work mate going to town - we are about 2hrs drive from town) so I won't know if he got a replacement or a refund untill tomorrow.
However, I will persist and get another card and try again...
Thank you for your help
Cheers
Graham

 

I hope someone comes back with an exception but of the PCI/IDE controller cards that I have worked with (Adaptec, Promise, IWill & Highpoint), none support anything other than HDD's.

 

That would just be crazy to make an IDE controller that doesn't work with a CD drive.

I looked at the manual too. So, are AGP video slots a thing of the past now?

Hope your new controller works out for you. I was wondering...what is your set up anyway?

 

Pretty basic setup really,
Gigabyte MB - GA-P35-S3L
Geforce 7200GS PCI Graphics
2gig Ram
Intel Core2 Duo E4500 CPU
40gig HD IDE - operating
160gig HD Sata - files
Win XP SP2

 

That's a nice little setup there. Nice that you stuck with WinXP.
I've worked on/seen some PCs with Vista and it just seems so sluggish.

So PCIx is the way.

Funny little story: We used an HPdc5700 (our current standard) and a mfg of a medical viewing system said they checked and their video card would work with that model PC. Well, their were problems and after reading the fine print in the HP manual, it said something like this about the PCIx port.

...Though it has the 'appearnance' of a PCI express port ...

Apparently it is just a hosting type of port for a dual video adapter...or something like that. Not a real PCI express port.

A generic read of the overall specs even says it is a PCI express port.

Nice

 

Back again,
The same card returned with assurances that it will run CD/DVD Drives, as he (salesman) has one himself for CD Drives. Anyway, it came with a CD which doesn't mean too much to me with whats on it. These are the main Folders on the CD. If they mean anything to anyone, please let me know?
cardbus_lan
Cardbus_rs232
expresscard_rs232
expresscard_usb
Ite
Moschip
Nec
Pci&pcmcia
Silicon_Image
VIA
I still have the same result...nothing!
cheers

 

Odd...looks like maybe the CD is for a variety of drivers for different hardware that the company also makes.

If windows sees the new device or if it is already in device manager but with the yellow circle then the have windows search the CD.

If windows doesn't find anything, then either it isn't on the CD or there may be executables in the directories that have to be installed/expanded.

*One other thing you might want to do first...if there is no manufucturer info or part id on the card, is run a pci scanner to get you the manufacturer and device codes. This will help you narrow down the device mfg and type.

Here is a link that has the PCI device/mfg list as well as some links to pci viewers.
http://www.pcidatabase.com/

http://members.datafast.net.au/~dft0802/downloads/pcidevs.txt

I used to use pciscan.exe or pci32 in Win9x...they are command line based scanners but I tried them in XP and got errors. PCITree seems to work ok, just make sure you download the updated text file above and put the hlp.sys file in the c:\windows\system32\drivers directory.

The manufacturer and device codes are in 4 bit hex. It looks like PCITree shows the mfg and devices along with the codes.

Good luck