Thank you Bryan and gduns. Here's the results of my tests based on your suggestions:
First off gduns:
My ASUS A8N-SLI Premium has 8 SATA connectors, 4 using NVRAID, and 4 using Silicon Image chip. Currently only the NVRAID is active in the BIOS. I'm running 2 WD 400 giggers in RAID 0 on the NVRAID ports because it tests out faster than the Silicon Image RAID.
This board has only 2 IDE ports, one Primary (blue), one Secondary (black). With "Master/Slave" cables, you could theoretically connect (or RAID) up to 4 IDE hard drives with this BIOS. The Plextor's are connected "Master/Slave" on a single cable to the Primary port. I just tried switching to the Secondary "just in case" and nothing changes.
Bryan:
I went into the BIOS and made sure that the IDE RAID option was turned off for both Primary and Secondary IDE ports (it was). Only the NVRAID SATA is turned on. The Silicon Image RAID is also turned off (as I said above).
So the BIOS is setup only for NVRAID SATA, and for regular IDE ports without RAID.
Now, if you look at the attached GIF, you'll see my Device Manager with all relevant sections highlighted in nice bright yellow
.
You can see the Plextor's are recognized (and working, except for MicStu).
The IDE PATA and SATA controllers are installed correctly.
Finally, there are two RAID driver sets installed. The first appears to be the "Master NVRAID" driver and the second appears to be the "SATA" extension.
You can see that I've deactivated the NERO IMAGEDRIVE, but that had no effect.
Does anyone happen to know if I'll ***** up my booting process if I deactivate the "Master" RAID controller and just leave the SATA RAID on?
You would think that no drivers would be installed if the BIOS has IDE RAID turned off.
Thanks again guys... this is a hum tickler
Regards,
Gene