My m/b A7N8X-E-Delux is equipped with 2 SATA & 3 PATA HDD (each 120 GB without any partition and non in RAID configuration), Athlon XP 2800+ processor, 1.5 GB RAM, 256 mb graphics, 400W power supply & Win XP. Since I am associated with video editing, tried to increase storage capacity by instlling another 4 PATA HDD (one by one) using external USB 2.0 HDD cassing for plug & play. Accordingly, OS recognised the harddisks and drive letter was assigned . After re-starting machine become unstable. Simptom - OS sometimes failed to recognise these additional HDDs. I tried all possible methods best known to me but could not resolve the problem. Is this a OS problem /limitation? How can I use maximum number of HDD at a time. What is the maximum number of HDD windows can accept ?
2007-03-20 22:37:48 · 3 answers · asked by DJ Sharma Assam 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
as far as i know you should not run sata and ide drives at the same time, maybe you should check up on this, my motherboard instructions told me this
2007-03-20 23:30:11 · answer #1 · answered by D McC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm williing to bet that you do not have a big enough power supply, or, alternatively, the USB bus is being overloaded. Try buying a self-powered USB hub (it will have it's own separate AC adapter) to power your external drives. By the way, XP will recognize as many drives as there are letters in the alphabet minus 1 (there is no "B" drive-don't ask me why-If I knew, I've forgotten. A is the floppy drive, C is your first HDD, D/E may or may not be your optical drive(s)-Still leaves room for 20 more drives, combo of internal/external drives, USB flash drives, etc. Would suggest that they now have drives up to 1 terabyte (1000 GB), and there are very reasonable drives out there in the 320-500 GB range-why not replace some of your dinky 120 GB drives if sufficient space is a concern?
2007-03-27 10:24:57 · answer #2 · answered by Douglas D 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Either your power supply doesnt have enough juice to boot all these devices or they are litterally making to much electrical noise..... I had 4 SATA 3.0 drives and the system would go through the diagnostic screen but woud get stuck on the windows boot screen.....
I had to go into the BIOS and set the spread spectum to a lower rate, reducing the performace and reducing the electrical noise of the drives...... and I was able to boot 5 drives total.....4 SATA and 1 IDE for a total of 800 gigs!
email me with any questions, I also have y messenger on....
2007-03-20 22:45:38 · answer #3 · answered by Vincent 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋