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Adding an ISA IDE Controller to a computer that already has FDD and HDD

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limboy777

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Apr 21, 2012
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Hi Ive seen some ISA IDE cards that I am thinking of adding to my Amstrad Mega PC which already has a floppy drive and hard drive connected to the motherboard. I want to add this card to experiment (I know an IDE cable with master/slave would be more easier).

Would this type of card need any drivers to be loaded or is it automatically recognised? Im assumming that I would need to set the other drives as slave in the jumper settings?

Thank you in advance.
 
Its not that easy. Some boards with onboard controllers do not allow the onboard floppy/ide to be turned off. Double check first before embarking on your journey is my advice. =)
(I have a compaq prolinea 486 like this that is useless most part. The floppy controller onboard is fried, and no way to use a 3rd party card due to no way to disable the dead controller. Ive tried and tried with different controllers scsi and ide, but no luck at all. :( )

Provided you can, for most things you shouldnt need any drivers. Now if you wanted to use the cdrom/atapi port on the controller, or windows 3.1 32-bit disk driver, you will need a driver usually. Windows 95 up will also need drivers, sometimes during os install, sometimes not, depending if the card has raid or not.
 
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Why don't you experiment with this card in another computer that doesn't have on board controllers? It would be much simpler. If you must use this Amstrad you'll need to either disable the on board controllers or ascertain the address(es) that they are using and set the address(es) on this card you have to something else. Even then you might encounter problems. Or, you might get lucky and find a jumper to disable the on board HD controller. I have a WD 286 board like this. It also has a feature that automatically disables the on board floppy controller just by installing a separate floppy disk controller.
 
I dont have any other old computers (all other computers are laptops or non pc vintage computers) I think I will leave this for now.

I am interested in fitting a cd drive into the mega pc. There is some damage to casing where the floppy is housed and Im wondering if I could cut this out and fit a slimline internal cd-rom. (can i just connect to the floppy cables? - sorry if that is a noob question - this is my first vintage computer that Im modifying
 
limboy777 said:
I dont have any other old computers (all other computers are laptops or non pc vintage computers) I think I will leave this for now.

I am interested in fitting a cd drive into the mega pc. There is some damage to casing where the floppy is housed and Im wondering if I could cut this out and fit a slimline internal cd-rom. (can i just connect to the floppy cables? - sorry if that is a noob question - this is my first vintage computer that Im modifying
Click to expand...

Can't answer the physical aspect of the CD-ROM.

Most any slimline CD-ROM drive you're going to find is going to be IDE (ATAPI) or SATA. Obviously, SATA is out, so you're left with the prospect of getting the CD-ROM to work with the onboard IDE controller. Give the problems that you've had with that, I'm not optimistic.

However, if you've got a spare normal-size CD-ROM or DVD drive kicking around with an IDE interface, you could at least verify that this is the case. Just hook it up and run the system with things hanging outside the case.
 
To add on to what Chuck just said, no matter what type of CD you have it can't be connected to the floppy cables. Furthermore, if it's not an ATAPI it won't work on the IDE cable, either. It will need it's own, proprietary card.
 
Thanks for your replies. I am assumming the card I would need would need to fit into my ISA slot?
 
If you wanted to run an IDE CDROM you'd want an IDE controller where you can disable/configure any unused ports, and set the hard drive controller to 'secondary' (this makes it respond to a different address range and IRQ than the inbuilt controller)- if you can't, it will cause conflicts. It's possibly easier to fit an ISA sound card with IDE connector. Either way, you'll then need the DOS IDE driver (either for that model of soundcard, or something like OAK CDROM for generic) + MSCDEX to find and mount the drive on startup.

If the main hard drive is IDE, you might not need a dedicated controller - as long as the CDROM is of a similar age to the hard drive, you should be able to configure it as slave and run it off the same cable as the hard drive. I can't remember what type of drive's the MegaPC's have.

But in all honesty, you will save hassle and possibly money by just buying a machine more intended for this purpose (like a 486 tower or regular 386 desktop) rather than expanding a machine like this. It wont boot off an IDE CDROM, so if you ever need to resinstall DOS you'll be pulling the machine apart again to refit the floppy drive etc.
 
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Thanks Spiderweb - never knew that ISA soundcards could also have IDE connectors. I will look out for one.

The reason why I am looking to fit a CD-drive is because the plastic housing on my mega pc is damaged around the floppy. I thought it might be a good idea to cut a section out and install a slimline cd drive like a slot loading one.
 
IIRC, most older sound cards that had CD headers on them had some sort of proprietary (SCSI) requirement for a CD drive and not IDE so you needed to match the drive(s) to the card's capability. Even those that supported more than one type of drive only supported those specific proprietary drives it was made for. With that in mind I'd say you'd be much better off with a pure ATAPI CD drive that will likely run with any IDE interface.
 
This list of ISA sound cards from VOGONS is a good place to start looking for a card with the features you want. An ESS1868 card with an IDE header is a good choice. It has clean sound output, good soundblaster emulation, and a really decent OPL3 clone. YMF-719 based cards are also a good choice.

Not all cards that support IDE actually have the header though, so make sure it's there before you buy a card.
 
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