Can I use sata raid ports to run dvd drive?

[theblindguy]

Howdy, quick question. hopefully an easy one. the sata ports on my mother appear to be bad. i can nolonger run my hdd or dvd off of them. my mobo, asus a8n-sli-premium, also has 4 sata raid ports on it. can u use these to run my hdd and dvd drives. if so, how do i set that up? or are these strickly for running multiple hdd from?

 

[geofelt]

If you have raid capable sata ports, they can also run non raid sata drives, either dvd or hdd or ssd.

 

[jaquith]

Welcome to Tom's Forum!

I quickly reviewed your manual and by Default ALL SATA ports are on, after migrating the SATA ports it might be a good idea to verify the boot priority in the BIOS as noted on page 4-2 and 4-16~4-20.

Also, make sure the Silicon Image® 3114R RAID controller driver(s) are installed for your OS -> http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_Socket_939/A8NSLI_Premium/#download

 

[theblindguy]

Thx for the welcome and the advise. i will try this when i get home. im not sure what you mean my "migrating the sata ports". my knowledge of migrating is limited to birds. i assume you mean moving them from the sata ports to the sata raid ports. if that wasnt what you mean please let me know. thanks again!

 

[Delirious788]

Are you looking to use RAID or do you just want to be able to setup your pc back to how yo had it, non-RAID?

From a quick scan of your MBs manual, it looks like the ports are RAID-capable. This means that if you go into your MBs BIOS, you can enable the ports for RAID and then setup a RAID0,1,5,... configuration with the HDDs hooked up to those ports.

It sounds like though you just want to be able to use the ports as normal SATA ports. The ports by default have RAID disabled(from what the MBs manual says), so unless you have changed this, just plug your HDD and DVDROM into the SATA ports and you should be able to boot up like normal.

 

[jaquith]

migrating = moving ; same as the birds...

 

[theblindguy]

yes Delirios788 your r correct. for some reason after using my sata ports for 6 months they have quit working so i thought i would try the other ports labeled sata raid on the MOBO if i could. i just want to boot from it and run my dvd. no raid

 

[theblindguy]

thx jaquith, thats what i though just wanted to be sure. lots of pc lingo out there.

 

[jaquith]

You just need to make sure your OS has the proper SATA drivers, otherwise the HDD or whatever's attached simply won't boot/run. IF you have the drivers then it's no big deal to move (migrate) the drives.

 

[theblindguy]

well it worked for at least 6 months before deciding it no longer wanted to boot. so i assume the drivers were there in the beginning. i haven't done anything to it. no new hardware or software. just your occasional windows update. it will boot using and old IDE HDD with both my SATA devises unplugged. i cant even plug in the SATA dvd and old IDE HDD or windows loads and freezes. boot from the sata HDD and it asks for a systems disk and wont boot. it wont be recognized in the bios either. so right now im running the old IDE HDD and no SATA devises. if you know what could cause this to happen suddenly i would love to hear it.

 

[jaquith]

One of (2) things: 1. MOBO is poof, 2. HDD(s) is/are poof. Easy to check, move the HDD(s) to another PC with SATA ports ---
1. IF the HDD shows-up + data accessible = bad MOBO <or>
2. IF the HDD(s) do NOT show-up and/or + data inaccessible = bad HDD(s).