[RESOLVED] Is it possible to add a second E-IDE board?

[KAnde98765]

I am trying to add another IDE card to a motherboard that has a built in E-IDE controller. I know that a card's port addresses and IRQ would have to be reconfigurable but I have not been able to find one that can do this. Are there any companies making a board that would be reconfigurable? Is any of this even possible?

[redcow]

Why don't you disable the onboard IDE controller. Install the IDE board. Look at the configuration. Then reboot, go back to the BIOS setup and enable the onboard IDE with settings that don't conflict with the card.

[KAnde98765]

I did try to disable the onboard adapter but I could never get the second card to configure to different port addresses than that would duplicate the internal adapter.
I have now tried seven to date. The most notable ones (not generic) are Acculogic's sIDE-2PCI. The rest have various chips including UMC.

I have tried PCI types but apparently the A# thru D# have nothing to do with addresses so there is no jumpers to accomplish this. The ISA ones can change IRQs but not the actual port address. All of them just use the same addresses no matter what (1f0 and 170). I would need one to be addresses 1e8 and 168.

Any thoughts?
KAnde98765@AOL.com

[lysergic]

Promise Tech has a bios update board that is meant to allow an older computer to run a drive larger then 8.4 gigs with out using an overlay. But the other benifit from it is that it allows you to run a second dual ide controller at the same time. This allows up to 8 ide devices.

[houseisland]

I think for things to work well, at least reliably, both your IDE controllers have to be designed to co-exist with a partner. I have never had much luck putting a secondary IDE card (one that can be configured as a secondary controller) into a system where the primary controller itself did not have a primary/secondary setting. Some controllers, such as the Promise ones I have used, even have to be configured for the presence of a second card besides being configured for a primary/secondary secondary role. Hope this helps.

[KAnde98765]

I am currently looking for a Promise Tech. adapter board. If I can find one I will post if it worked.

[houseisland]

Be careful about which Promise card you choose if you are using any IDE devices with removable media, such as CD ROMs, etc. Some of their IDE cache cards (very nice cards) do not support removable media devices. Look before you leap.

[Kosche]

I've installed a Promise Ultra33 controller, and it works adequately (I need to replace all the cables, because of noise problems only when using the Promise card).

One problem I'm having with the card, is the lack of apparent SMART support on the controller. Promise Tech Support has not helped.

Is anyone able to run SMART sensors on a Promise Ultra33 controller? What OS are you using, and what application/monitor are you using to extract the SMART information?

I'm using NT4.0 Server SP5.

Thanks.

[KAnde98765]

Glad to see someone is at least having "adequate" results with something. I need to hop down to the store and get one of these cards.
So far my short term solution has been to put a great-big hard drive on my system.
That freed up a space for another cd-rw but that is not adequate in the long term (or even the short term really.)