Hi Guys,

I have built my new machine using a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP M/B and have set it up such that the boot harddrive is on IDE0, the DVD & CD read/writers are on IDE1 (2 devices on one channel) and the storage harddrive is on SATA0.

Couple of questions.

Can the boot drive be relocated to IDE2? (The M/B has 4 IDE channels)

If it can, is there any benefit in moving it so that the DVD could have IDE0 and the CD could utilise IDE1?

Thanks,

Mike

The boot device can certainly be moved to a different channel. Don't know what benefit might come from that tough. Access speeds and the likes will remain the same.

I understand you are saying there are 4 IDE controllers?
There's a definite benefit to having each drive on it's own [separate] controller. In such circumstances each controller and its drive are running independently and concurrently [side by side like a pack of "Curs" = dogs. Hence the "Cur" in con-cur(r)-ent. It comes from old Norwegian "Kurr" = to grumble or murmur (like a dog does).]
So anyway.... Your drives will run side-by-side like a pack of dogs, not taking turns as they must if they share a controller.

I understand you are saying there are 4 IDE controllers?

Yep, I was skeptical about that so I looked up Specs (http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_Spec_GA-8KNXP%20Ultra.htm)

2 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 Bus Master IDE

2 x UltraDMA 100/66 Bus Master IDE

So apparently it does have 4 IDE controllers. When I looked at the page before that, more advertising than anything else, it said RAID and SCSI so I figured 2 IDE, 2 RAID or SCSI, but it looks like I was wrong...

To answer the question, well you guys have covered it pretty well already. No real reason to put the boot drive on IDE 2, it won't make any difference in performance, should be fine as is or with CD/DVD drives each on its own channel.

One rider to the above is "that it does depend on whether you can set that controller to be the boot device in the BIOS setup". In all probability, with the setup you are using, that won't be a problem. However, I recently wanted to do this on a threee year old Compaq Presario, and there was no BIOS set up to enable it. In fact the Compaq must have one of the most plain or simple BIOS set-ups you could come across.

The BIOS setup also varies very much from PC to PC in the ways you can boot to a SATA drive or RAID setup; most commonly one would choose the "SCSI" setting to allow for this, should you decide on that as an option in the future.

Hi Guys,

Thanks Sylvander for the erudite dissectiom of concurrent. I was pretty comfortable with it before. Didn't know about the Norse root though (via Middle English).

Thanks for the views. I put the changes in place and it turned out that no BIOS changes were required. The boot drive is now on IDE2, the DVD on IDE0 and the CD on IDE1. Storage volume on SATA 0.

Only noticeable difference is no hesitation on the DVD when opening.

Cheers,

Mike:)