A8V Deluxe Promise SATA/PATA Controller

I've looked through my manual, and may have overlooked the answer to this,
but here goes.

The motherboard sports both SATA and PATA connectors for the Promise
controller. Am I limited to using one or the other connector, or can I use
both concurrently?

Current situation is one SATA data drive on the Promise. I have a spare 80
gig PATA drive I'd like to use for added storage space.

My gut tells me I'm SOL on this and will have to either buy a SATA drive, or
a PATA_to_SATA adapter.

Anybody tried using both?

In article <KY%Mf.175947$WH.150240@dukeread01>, "Peter van der Goes"
<> wrote:

> I've looked through my manual, and may have overlooked the answer to this,
> but here goes.
>
> The motherboard sports both SATA and PATA connectors for the Promise
> controller. Am I limited to using one or the other connector, or can I use
> both concurrently?
>
> Current situation is one SATA data drive on the Promise. I have a spare 80
> gig PATA drive I'd like to use for added storage space.
>
> My gut tells me I'm SOL on this and will have to either buy a SATA drive, or
> a PATA_to_SATA adapter.
>
> Anybody tried using both?

There are two drivers for the Promise 20378. One driver is used
for RAID, the other for non-RAID. For non-RAID, the file name
of the driver would be something like 378ATA...

With the non-RAID driver installed, you should be able to install
both SATA and PATA drives on the 20378 controller.

Be sure to uninstall the RAID driver first, before installing
the non-RAID driver. Check Google if you have a problem
doing this - a recent poster (last couple of months) posted
his solution in this group.

Also, you may wish to format/partition the new drive, put a
few files on each partition, then move the drive to another
computer, to see if the drive is "portable" between platforms.
My experience with the 20378, was my first partition disappeared,
when I moved a prepared drive from one computer to another. If
portability is important, a Southbridge interfaced drive may
be more portable between platforms. I don't know what causes
this, but suggest you check for drive portability before
putting a lot of data on there. Portability helps, when the
time comes, to try to recover data from a broken drive. If
you have a good backup system in place for the computer, then
don't worry about this issue.

Paul

"Paul" <> wrote in message
news:nospam-2802061423110001@192.168.1.178...
> There are two drivers for the Promise 20378. One driver is used
> for RAID, the other for non-RAID. For non-RAID, the file name
> of the driver would be something like 378ATA...
>
> With the non-RAID driver installed, you should be able to install
> both SATA and PATA drives on the 20378 controller.
>
> Be sure to uninstall the RAID driver first, before installing
> the non-RAID driver. Check Google if you have a problem
> doing this - a recent poster (last couple of months) posted
> his solution in this group.
>
> Also, you may wish to format/partition the new drive, put a
> few files on each partition, then move the drive to another
> computer, to see if the drive is "portable" between platforms.
> My experience with the 20378, was my first partition disappeared,
> when I moved a prepared drive from one computer to another. If
> portability is important, a Southbridge interfaced drive may
> be more portable between platforms. I don't know what causes
> this, but suggest you check for drive portability before
> putting a lot of data on there. Portability helps, when the
> time comes, to try to recover data from a broken drive. If
> you have a good backup system in place for the computer, then
> don't worry about this issue.
>
> Paul

Thanks very much, Paul.
I tried it out, and it works like a charm
Now I have one SATA and one PATA (not RAID, of course) running fine on the
Promise controller. A rare time when one gets *more* than one expects.