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My board only has pri and sec ide channels. In the pri ide channels I have two hds connected. One as master and the other as slave. In the sec ide channel I have a plex as master and litey as slave. So I installed an Adaptec Ultra ATA card. I then connected the litey to the ata card as master and left the plex as master in the sec ide channel. I booted the system and got an error message (insert boot disk) and before that, I was prompted to hit f3 for set-up of card. I went back to my original set-up and all is working well. Does anyone have any idea of what could have happened? Do I need to switch the plex unit to cable select while connected to sec ide channel? Cause the ata card only gives you the option to set-up as master.

The system while it started the boot sequence it did recognize the ata card and the litey connected to it. But it gave the error message after that. Is the problem that there are too many master units?

Thanks.

I would check the BIOS to make sure it is set to boot from the correct drive. If it was trying to boot from the litey connected to your add on card, it might tell you to insert a boot disc??

Double check your jumper settings. Some drives have one setting for master with slave, and another for single drive (master with no slave). In other words there is quite often a jumper setting that is used when the drive is by itself on the cable.

I have an ATA card on 2 PCs in addition ot he IDE controllers on the mb. You have to set the following on your BIOS:

1. Make sure the built-in IDE controller is first in the order of the boot-up sequence
2. On some MBs, you have to disable the bootup messages otherwise it will hang on the external ATA controller.

I also suggest you consult your MB manual or the manufacturer's website. Thta's how I found the need for item 2 above. On the Intel website.

I have an Asus P4G8X Del and when I installed the ATA card it said press f3 to set-up card. I guess this is where one sets the boot up sequence. I went into the set-up and set my master HD as my boot drive. Also for this card one has to set the drive connected to it as master. Will give another try later today. I was doing this yesterday at around 2300 hours.

Thanks for the advise.