Hi, all,

a friend gave me a new seagate 160gb hdd.  since...
(1)i didn't have any imm. need
(2)i also didn't have extra IDE connection (all 4 on mobo full)
(3) didn't want to go in for external enclosure...

i just bought a PCI to IDE converter card and hooked up the HDD (raw..without format /partitioning) and booted up.

all fine BUT my o/s (winxp pro) load time has more than trebled compared to without the new HDD.

steps...

detect IDE drives/listing primary ULTIMA ...../blinking cursor at top left/ a horizontal load bar/winxp load bar/desktop....all takes about 3 minutes as against just a minute or less earlier.

device manager shows the new HDD as SCSI disk device and it has a new entry
 "SCSI &RAID controller" = Aralion Ultima Raid 100 controller(WHQL)

disk management shows my first HDD (with o/s) as " disk 0 (with all 3 partitions) and the new one as disk 1 149 GB " unallocated"

in BIOS boot options i find the new HDD listed as "RAID CARD"

BUT in "my computer" i can not find the new HDD. only the old one with 3 partitions, cdrom, cdrw, dvdrw, floppy.

question is

(1) how do i access the new drive? through "disk management and after format/partition etc..??? will it show up in my computer.

(2) is the delay in o/s load time because the new drive is  RAW??

now... i didn't bargain/ nor do i know anything about RAID/SCSI.

any input on o/s load time delay will be greatly appreciated

thanks, Venkat

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