Possible dumb question

[Stickfigure]

So my motherboard has run out of sata ports except for the 2 sata ports dedicated for RAID. What I'd like to know is can these 2 RAID sata ports be used as normal sata ports aka can I plug 2 hdd's into them and use them as if they were plugged into any other sata port? Or can the raid sata ports only be used to raid 2 hdd's?

 

[ponder]

What motherboard?

 

[Stickfigure]

Asus Maximus II Formula

 

[nivek]

Check in your BIOS you might have an option to change the mode those 2 ports run in

 

[LFX]

only 1 of them can be used as a regular sata port.... you have to set it in the bios

 

[Stickfigure]

Awesome. Will have a poke around in the bios now. Thanks.

 

[ZeroGig]

Not sure about your particular motherboard but I have an Asus motherboard and I am able to use all sata ports as normal. There is a setting in the bios only problem I found was I needed to reinstall my O/S, after I made the change in the bios my pc wouldn't boot.
If you don't come right pm me I'll check the setting and let you know what it is.

Went and had a look at my bios.
Under storage configuration you can change the "SATA Mode select"
Change that to "AHCI Mode"
Then you can use all SATA ports.

Just remember you will need to reinstall your O/S.
Don't say I didn't warn you!!!

 

[xera]

Just remember you will need to reinstall your O/S.
Don't say I didn't warn you!!!

Actually you don't need to re-install after enabling ACHI...

You just need to change a setting in the registry before going into BIOS, and it should work fine.

However on my gigabyte mobo, I can see all my SATA ports just fine with IDE mode selected (including raid ports), but when I change it to ACHI, then some of them don't show in windows...