GA8IEXP with Promise RAID controller - can I add a PCI Raid

[jjk1951]

I have a GA8IEXP motherboard with an onboard Promise raid chip (chipset 20276). It runs the "MBFastTrak133 Lite BIOS Version 2.00.0.20". I currently use the Promise chip to mirror two 80GB Seagate drives and this works fine. I have added 2 160GB drives to the machine and tried to mirror these (as well as the 80GB drives) using the Promise FastBuild Configuration utility but it would not let me do this as it said I was running the "Lite" version and this version only allowed the user to setup one mirrored set.
I am now considering installing a PCI IDE Raid controller and using this to mirror the 2 160GB drives (while at the same time still using the Promise Raid to mirror the 2 x 80GB drives). Can anybody advise me whether this should work - ie having both an onboard RAID controller and a PCI Raid controller. I am a bit scared to try it in case I mess up the system BIOS and end up losing the 80GB mirrored set.

Thanks in anticipation

[tjwasiak]

While it should work, to be on a safe side you can use PCI IDE Raid controller based on other than Promise chipset for example Silicon Image... Or maybe try more expensive card with support for 4 IDE drives and make 2 arrays on PCI controller while disabling onboard Promise.