Increasing available IDE channels

This is not something I need to do, I am just curious if it would work or not.

Lets say you have a motherboard with a standard 2 IDE channels. You connect 2 hard drives and 2 CD-ROM drives. What happens when you need to connect another hard drive (not by USB - no cheating!)

Can you connect a PCI IDE interface so as to add another 1 or 2 IDE channels? Would the BIOS detect the card and ultimately, the hard drives and/or CD-ROM drives? Would they be bootable?

Also, instead of installing a PCI IDE interface card, can you install a SATA card instead alongside the onboard IDE?

I know that SCSI would be the ideal option here, but if you don't have SCSI, what other options do you have?

 

There are PCI IDE, SATA or SCSI controllers one can add to give yourself more channels.

 

Would they be automatically detected by the BIOS, since the CMOS only gives options for the onboard IDE channels

 

Sometimes, but it doesn't matter -- add-in controllers have their own BIOSes, so drives connected are bootable.

 

Just like when you add USB cards or any expansion card for that matter...
No? BIOS detects it and then it is just there to be used isn't it?

I always took it for granted... sort of.

 

USB controllers don't have BIOSes, I was referring to IDE, SATA, SCSI controllers.

 

You can keep adding IDE controllers as long as you have enough PCI slots for them

 

So if you wanted to uprgrade a motherboard's IDE channels with SATA channels, all you need to do is disable the onboard IDE and plug in the SATA interface card?

 

I don't know why you would need to disable the IDE but if it is so maybe someone can explain why?

 

You might need to disable the onboard IDE if the controller/paddle board started malfunctioning.

Like I said, this isn't something I need to do, I am just curious.