I made little hardware related f*ckup...

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:13 am

Ok as u might or might not know im just currently building my dedicated htpc... last parts arrived just today and i spent whole day putting hardware together.

I decided to go with IDE hard drives... i know theyre not exactly newest of technlogies, but since i had two of samekind already dusting i figured out i could easily and rather cheaply put together four disc striping RAID.

Because my earlier mobo had like 4 ide channels which two of them were RAID controllers and other two regular... I didnt quite even think about i could actually run out of IDE plugs...

But this new mobo has only 2 Ide channels (both of which support RAID), so my 4 HDDs are going to eat up all IDEs... so problem is where to connect freaking optical drive! Cause my case is Origen AEs x15e, it has, optical bay in front panel, it kind of needs _internal_ optical drive. I cant just leave hole in front!!! Also to my dissappointment and surprise theres no firewire on mobo.

Ok now i want to find cheapest, smartest and easiest solution to cover my fuck-up, thats where u enter to picture my dear fellow XLobbyist. Surely i have couple of ideas how to proceed... but havent exactly find the killer solution yet, so guys give me some ideas...

(solution which reguire to enter new cards into bus are ruled out cause i need all bus slots reserved for other purposes.)

by **Colby** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:48 am

Thats a delima, maybe a device that makes your ide harddisk usb. Or maybe sell your 2 (4) hardrives on ebay and buy a new one. new motherboard? I dont know a cheap easy way to fix your f*up.

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:55 am

Colby wrote:Thats a delima, maybe a device that makes your ide harddisk usb.

That was exactly best solution i had figured out... except i was thinking to take that device apart and put its electronics behind of optical drive... but only dilemma i have with that solution: i have no clue if it is going to preserve bootable property... anybody has experience with these?

by **bfauska** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:25 am

You can buy an ide raid pci card and move the HDs to that. They show them at pricewatch.com for $13 that seems like a simple solution and you don't have to wory about booting from usb. It looks like your case has plenty of room for the card.

Hope that helps,
Brian

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:15 am

Yes that is certainly true... but i try to avoid using up a card slot if i just have other choige. true that i still have few PCI-e slots unused... but theres still few cards i need to get too, for example dvb-s, and even damn firewire card (so using that solution would just delay problem bit further)...

mobos info over net was so conflicting, that i was tricked to believe it has firewire circuit... well IDE thingy is totally my own fault though.

BTW since bus always seems to be scarcest resource (at least for me) in comps, does anybody know if it can be expanded on regular mobos by means of using external PCI2PCI bridges and extra backplanes, or is that stuff only suitable for industrial PCs?

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:09 am

Ok problem solved. I found out there actually is few optical-SATA-drives available. Ordered one.

I cant install operating system though before i get it... so this is going to further delay release of new version of xPerT. Stay patient.

by **abobader** on Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:58 am

Hi P3rv3rt B3ar,

I hardly can call this "f**kup" issue, we all run on these issue one time or another.

Solution was easy tho, simple ide to usb connecter and you can use your old optical (dvd/cd) drive.

But as you just solve the issue, with searial ATA (good thing your mobo support SATA), then it the best solution.

Good luck and my best.

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:41 pm

Ok got the SATA-optical drive today and after a long trouble with damn floppies (yeah, ever tried to install NVRAID

) whole terabyte level 4 disc striping RAID system is working like a dream....

BUT freaking windows MCE is giving me hardtime... I think fucking dealer confiscated one disc of my OEM edition...

Can somebody here with 2005 OEM MCE confirm the manifest:

1. MCE disc-1
2. MCE disc-2
3. 2005 updates disc
4. localization disc

I think im missing something called "service pack 2" disc, cause windows is asking it while installed. can somebody confirm this? So i wont go tomorrow yelling my face red at dealer, for no reason...

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Thu Aug 24, 2006 10:17 pm

Turn out i wasnt missing disc... thats just microsoft way to ask first disc again... oh boy, i hate that company...

by **Naylia** on Thu Aug 24, 2006 10:45 pm

Yeah the installer is based off the XP Pro SP2 installer and they didn't quite update all the dialog boxes