JBOD setup ok for 1st time power up and install?

[mealeyma]

I am preparing to put a new rig together-XP2000, Epox 8k5a2, WD 80mb, cdrw, and dvd.

I am aware that it is possible to use the 2 raid ports on my motherboard to use as regular ide ports, as long as it is for Harddrives and not optical drives. At any rate, the WD drive will be in new status, and needs to be formatted. Will I be able to format it after booting up if it is plugged into one of the raid ports, or should I have this in IDE 1 first, format, and then go back and put in the raid spot? Thanks in advance!

[BipolarBill]

Welcome to SysOpt!

Depends on the Windows version. Generally, all Windows CDs are bootable and allow you to FDISK and format during setup but Win2K and XP require that you press F6 and load the drivers for the RAID controller first.

Many onboard RAID controllers cannot host single drives. Read your manual. You can download it from EPoX.

Be sure that your boot sequence is set properly before starting Setup!

Good luck.

[jmichna]

Your EPoX mobo (the big brother descendent to my 8K3A+) should be able to support a single, non-RAID, bootable HD on the RAID controller with no problem. Just double check the owner's manual (on the HighPoint controller) for what settings you need in BIOS and the RAID "BIOS."
jmichna

PS: not to be too picky ;) , but your thread title referring to "JBOD" is a bit misleading. JBOD is "chaining" together two drives to make one larger drive... not quite RAID-0 "striping," as there is no striping (read/write of data, alternatively, to two drives in a RAID-0 array). Data is just read/written to the first drive until it fills, then gets read/written to the next hard drive... both drives together seen as one "big ol' disk."

[mealeyma]

my bad-- I thought JBOD meant something else. Thanks a lot for the great advice