RAID Controller-Is It The RIght Part

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J

Jerry Dale

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Mar 13, 2014
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I purchased 2 DVD drives for my PC and the connections required SATA.
I have a hard drive connected to #1 SATA slot on the motherboard, and I plugged in one of
the new DVD drives into SATA #2 slot. I got a PCI to 2 SATA card from
StarTech dotcom (part # PCISAT2IDE1) and downloaded the driver and installed,
and connected DVD drive #2 into the card. DVDs and music CDs do not play on
DVD drive #2. Windows Media Player starts up but does not play. Disks are
automatically detected when I insert them.

When I connected drive #2 to SATA on the motherboard, it worked okay.
Question: is the card I bought wrong for what I want to use it for?
The card installation process referred to "RAID controller" and my Windows XP
device manager shows I have this: "VIA RAID Controller - 3249"

Would it be unwise to disconnect my hard disk SATA cable from the motherboard
and connect it to the new SATA card?
Thanks.
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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May 27, 2010
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Well a RAID controller is just an optional function of a SATA controller. They likely intended it for hard drives, but it should run a DVD drive. When you say they don't play, do you mean only DVD movies and music CDs, or data discs as well?

Startech makes some fairly cheap products, so not really sure what you have got here. VIA made a lot of motherboard components back in the day, and they still sort of do.

Looks like you got a simple Serial ATA controller with SATA 1.0 and an IDE controller that you probably didn't need. It should work just as well.

Windows might not like the drive moving, but as long as it shows up in the boot order you should be able to start it up.
 
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J

Jerry Dale

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Mar 13, 2014
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10,520
My experience with this RAID controller did not go well. At every boot-up, the BIOS message included "If you want to install Linux default RAID driver, please do not use OPROM creation operation!" First time I've ever been shouted at from the BIOS.
From Windows XP Safe Mode, I could see DVD disk files in Explore, but once I accessed the drive it was practically impossible to regain control of the desktop. Another time in Safe Mode, from a DOS window I looked at a list of
files (DIR) on a disk connected via SATA on the motherboard, and everything displayed fast as expected. Doing the same
thing on the drive connected to the controller card SATA slot, and the list came back noticeably slower.

In a regular Windows XP session, running MS Word produced a message to the effect that my
equipment configuration had changed and Word now had less functionality.

I removed the controller card and the one DVD drive cabled to the motherboard works normally,
and MS Word is back to normal.

I know I only need 1 DVD drive, but something is preventing me from having 2 drives, and I am
not ready to give in to defeat. And then there's that gaping hole I need to fill up:)

I welcome any suggestions on how to add a 2nd SATA drive when I have
just one SATA slot available for drive #1. The other SATA slot is being used for
a hard drive.

 
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