# Asus PC800(E) Deluxe support 3 hard drives?



## Blade_Jones (Feb 5, 2005)

Does the Asus PC800(E) Deluxe support 3 hard drives? I'm running 2 right now. Not sure how to connect a third. :4-dontkno 

Here is the scematic of the motherboard....
http://www.junkyardwillie.com/asus.jpg


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2005)

Hi,

The answer lies in what we don't know. How many other drives do you have connected to IDE #2? Also, what type of drive are you trying to connect (IDE, SATA) to the computer. Might be a good idea to list what you have like what they are and how you want the setup (raid, non-raid, etc) to be.


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## Blade_Jones (Feb 5, 2005)

I have been using the SATA connectors on the Asus mother board for the Western Digital drives. 

-- Asus P4C800(E) Deluxe
-- Intel Pentium 4 FSB 800 @ 3.0 GHz
-- Windows XP Pro
-- 2 Western Digital WD Caviar WD800JD 80GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer and Serial ATA (getting ready to add a 3rd drive
-- Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 1GB DDR400 XMS3200 Dual-Channel Memory
-- Radeon 9200SE video card
-- ATX case 430 Watts PSU
-- Nuendo 2.0.2.39 audio production software


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## Wozer (Oct 3, 2004)

Blade_Jones said:


> Does the Asus PC800(E) Deluxe support 3 hard drives? I'm running 2 right now. Not sure how to connect a third. :4-dontkno


sure it does...and more if you really want...it will support up to 4 IDE drives and 2 SATA drives, and more can be added in via the promise controller or by adding in a PCI card....

I have mine set up presently with 3 drives...2 on the primary IDE, and 1 on the secondary as master and a DVDrom drive as a slave...both drives on the primary have OS's on them (dual boot system) and the one on the secondary is purely for data (audio samples)...while I am aware of a slight loss of effeciency because I have the 2 primary IDE drives partitioned (increased seek times), I still do it because of the usefullness of having the OS's on separate drives..


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## Blade_Jones (Feb 5, 2005)

> it will support up to 4 IDE drives and 2 SATA drives


I shouldn't have jumped the gun in buying a third Western Digital SATA drive. I guess I'll stick the thing on Ebay. IDE it is.

Where on the Asus MB are the IDE connectors? (see URL to scematic)
http://www.junkyardwillie.com/asus.jpg


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## Wozer (Oct 3, 2004)

look at the middle/upper right of the pic...there are three inputs there PRI_IDE, SEC_IDE, Floppy...if I remember correctly, the primary is blue...

oh, and you might be able to use that third sata drive...via the promise controller...I know you can use an IDE drive on the controller and not use the RAID function, not sure about a SATA drive...search around for some posts by clintfan on such issues..or you can probably get a PCI controller card for SATA drives...


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## twajetmech (Jul 1, 2004)

Uh, this has been answered already...you can have 4 SATA drives...1 on the sata1 one on the sata2, you can also have one on the sataraid1 and one on the sataraid2 in either a raid or non-raid configuration. So there is no need to seel your drive. And of course you can have 2 drives each on the ide's primary and secondary......all this is in the mobo manual ! Just be sure to load the correct driver if using the sata raid connectors. I'd reccomend a seach of Clintfan's posts...he does a wonderful job of explaining it all !


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

The P4C800-E Deluxe will in theory support up to 10 storage devices: 6 PATA and 4 SATA. Btw, just because the Promise ports have "RAID" in their _names_ doesn't mean they can't run non-RAID mode; Promise and Intel are relatively unique in that regard. Tell us more... what port names are your current drives attached to?

IMO there's no reason to sell your 3rd SATA drive. You can use it with this great mobo. You might want to think about upgrading that 430W supply to 480W though, to maintain stability.

If you choose to add the SATA, a fairly comprehensive explanation of the installation of the drivers may be found in this thread which is for a different mobo model which nevertheless uses the same Promise chip. Another good reference is here.

As they said, there are other references too... just try a forum Search- Advanced Search. Specify the Username "clintfan" and Key Word "SATA378".

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## Blade_Jones (Feb 5, 2005)

> Tell us more... what port names are your current drives attached to?


I have my 2 Western Digital SATA drives connected to SATA1 and SATA2.

http://www.junkyardwillie.com/asus.jpg

I connected the 3rd Western Digital SATA drive to SATA_RAID1 but it was not recognized by the computer.


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

You first need to set the BIOS Advanced- Onboard Devices Configuration- Onboard Promise Controller to Enabled, and Operating Mode to IDE Mode. Then you can install that SAA378 driver.

If you already did all that, by "recognized" I'm not sure what you mean... it will never show up on the BIOS "Main" screen. That screen only shows devices attached to the main chipset, but never any add-on devices on external controllers like the Promise. However your mobo's AMIBIOS will include addon devices in the pulldown menus which appear under the BIOS Boot- Hard Disk Drives menu.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## Blade_Jones (Feb 5, 2005)

Thanks man! All systems go. Got me 3 drives and did an upgrade to 480 watts.


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