Installing SATA dvd burner on machine with no spare SATA ports/connectors
- by Faheem Mitha
Greetings. I have the following motherboard
Tyan Thunder K8WE S2895A2NRF Motherboard - extended ATX - nForce Pro
2200/2050 - Socket 940 - UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID) - 2 x Gigabit
Ethernet - FireWire - 6-1 channel audio
This is part of a computer that was assembled in the winter of 2006/2007.
The user manual says the following with regard to SATA
Integrated SATAII Generation 1 Controllers (from NForce Professional 2200)
Two integrated dual port SATA II controllers
Four SATA connectors support up to four drives
3 Gb/s per direction per channel
NvRAID v2.0 support
Supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD.
I just purchased a SATA DVD burner. Here is the page for the product
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B002QGDWLK/
The problem I am facing is that I already have 4 SATA drives installed. I
don't want to remove any of them. However, I want the DVD burner above
installed as well.
The person I am consulting with here (Bombay, India) tells me that my four
available SATA ports are filled, and that my only option is to install a
SATA card into the one free PCI slot on the motherboard. However, he says
that with this setup I will not be able to boot from the DVD drive.
Are these statements correct, and what are my other options if any? Even
it the statements in the last para are true, I suppose I could use one of
the motherboard connectors/ports there are currently being used with the
hard drives with the DVD drive, and use the "add-on" connector with one of
the hard drives. Not all the 4 hard drives need to be bootable.
BTW, despite having read through
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Cables.2C_connectors.2C_and_ports
I am fuzzy on the differences between connectors, cables and ports.
Thanks in advance.
