[Techtalk] Re: IDE Controller support

Sophie sophie at cats.meow.at
Wed Aug 21 18:06:37 EST 2002


On Wed, Aug/21/02 11:39:55AM -0500, Julie wrote:
> Sophie wrote:
> > Is there a chip with a number you could read?
> 
> I'll get you the number next time I have the card in my mitts.

ok


> The controller was recognized by Win2K, but not by Linux.

if this is a controller which presents a plain old ide interface, then that's most odd


> Is there a controller that you or others have found works better?
> Or works at all?

Uh, all of the one's I've used :) From miscellaneous isa ide controllers (and even an 8bit one...), through every single x86 motherboard I have, to ata raid controllers (highpoint and silicon image). The raid controllers are only a few dollars more than stand-alone ide controllers, and are imho worth it for the extra bandwidth they provide.


> Heh.  This is what happens when you stop being a poor college student.
> When I was in college I used 8" floppy disks.  Within a few years of
> being out of college I was splurging on 35MB (that's mega-byte) drives
> which seems nearly infinite compared to 1,224KB floppies.

Raa. I have a 20MB disk somewhere - and dual 40MB in my 286 :)


> > I mean the adapters you can get which let you plug an ide drive
> > into a scsi bus - they're about $30. I got one when I was desparatley
> > trying to find things to work on a non-standard single-ended bus for
> > a pa-risc machine.
> 
> I never knew such a thing even existed!  Who makes them, what are
> they called, tell me more?!?

They're a little thing that sits betweent he drive and the scsi cable... they buffer the ide device id through to the disk, and translate the rest of the protocol - it's wierd seeing an ide name on a scsi bus :)

Acard make them, sold as "scside bridges" - actually they seem slightly more expensive than I got mine for, but that was wholesale price. There's a whole bunch of different types here:
http://pc500.net/catbrowse.php?bid=258
I'm not sure if different companies make them; I've not much experience with them. I just happen to have used one, once :)

- sophie



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