migrating both raid and not raid PATA to ITE IT8212 (on motherboard like GA-8GPNXP Duo)

Hello,

I've a computer with 4 year old motherboard (MSI 694D Pro).
This motherboard contain 2 standard Ultra DMA100 port and a Promise Fastrack
100 controller.

Here is the list of the drive on the motherboard:
- connected on the promise Fastrack 100 : two hard disk (60 GB each) in Raid
mirroring
- connected on the 2 standard Ultra DMA100 : a DVD reader, a DVD writer, a
200 GB disk (ultra dma 100) and a 120 GB Disk (ultra dma 100) .

This computer is to be user under Windows XP (and future version of Windows)

Can I buy an GA-8GPNXP Duo and :

- connect the DVD reader and the burner on the intel IDE port
- connect all hard disk to the IT8212.


(as I understand, the IT8212 is only for hard disk)



I want continue to have the two 60 GB disk mirrored, and the 200 and 120 GB
disk
as independant disk.
Is it possible ? And is it possible without reformat the disk ?
(I just want save data on disk, I known I can have to reinstall Windows
itself)

This mean :
- can I mix two independant disk, bootable, on the IT8212 and two mirrored
disk
- can I migrate mirror of two disk from Promise Fasttrack100 to IT8212

And can I boot on the 200 or 120 GB disk connected on the IT8212 ?


Of course, Sata is nice for future, but I don't want buy new disk at this
time for this computer.

 

Firstly...... I am not an expert.
Secondly ....... my comments are just for you to consider.

Yes there is only one "true" ide channel & therefore use for your DVD
drives.
Yes I would put the two 60GB drives on to the other "ide" connections.
(IT8212 as you said) & set them up as a raid exactly as you have them
already on the old computer. I am almost certain that you will lose all on
these drives but others will advise. I take it that these 2 drives have the
Operating System on them?
As for the other two bigger drives. If I'm correct, you get one PCI slot on
that board? I would buy one of those PCI promise raid cards but setup as two
single drives. I take it that these are just storage drives? I reckon all
data will be OK on these.
Can you slave one of the 60's as well as one of the bigger drives into
another computer first & copy all your "data" across to the bigger one
before you proceed? Once you "get going" you can copy back. Of course most
programs will need reinstalling.
For a new setup it would be foolish not to start clean.

There are of course many other ways of doing it.
Put the DVD drives on a PCI raid card, the bigger drives on the true IDE
channel & the 60's on the onboard raid.
Like I said...... listen to ideas & decide yourself what you want to do.
That board CAN be a real test of your ability. Do a little research into
correct procedure to install "SCSI" driver during installation.
Goodluck