Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW RAID IDE/normal configuration

[pcmonger]

I have a Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW dual AMD motherboard with 2 2100+ AMD MP CPUs. This motherboard has 4 IDEs built into it. Two of them are regular IDEs, each capable of hooking up 2 components. A maximum of 4 components are already installed, using up both regular IDEs. The other 2 IDEs are made for RAID configurations. I am currently not using RAID or configured for one, thus this leads to my main question...

Can I use the two IDEs that are supposed to be used for RAID configurations, to be used as normal IDEs? Can I also control the UDMA transfer for this? Currently I cannot.

I currently have an ATAPI CD-RW 48x24x48x hooked up to one of the RAID IDE configured at normal usage. It sees it fine, but it doesn't burn CDs at the 48x rate. I noticed that it is not using the UDMA setting. How can I modify this setting?

I also read somewhere that RAID does not function normally with an ATAPI hardware. That would make sense why the CD-RW didn't function at top speed. If I swap the hard drive to be in the RAID IDE, would the hard drive perform at top speed? In other words, would it automatically use the Ultra DMA setting for the hard drive?

The driver for the built-in RAID says it's a Promise Ultra100 IDE controller, with Promise chipset model 20267.

Thank you for any feedback. I couldn't get any answers from the Geek Squad so I go here.

 

[Crashman]

Most RAID controllers also support hard drives without using RAID. Most onboard RAID controllers don't however support ATAPI devices.

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