how many IDE hard drives can i put on my pc? i allready instaled a dvd-drive and a cdrw.is there any soplution to put 3 200GB slave hard disks on my pc? i have to get a specific a new IDE controler?

An IDE controller can only manage 2 physical devices. You have 1 x HDD, 1 x CD-RW and 1 x DVD: so you can only put in ONE more IDE drive. Why on earth do you want 600Gb? If a file server is what you want, go out and get a SCSI adapter and plug it into a PCI slot. You can accomodate 8 [SCSI] units on most of these. However you'll also need a file server cabinet as most PC cases just were not designed for more than an IDE limitation on devices. Remebering that you can also have 2 x Floppy Drive Types on the Floppy Disk Controller.

IDE controllers usually handle 4 drives in 2 channels of 2 drives. Drives includes CDROM, CDRW, CDR, DVD, HDD, etc. One IDE connector on motherboard or PCI controller card, is one channel: 2 drives (Master and Slave). The only thing that can handle more than 4 drives, is SCSI. In the old days, there WERE floppy controllers that could handle up to 8 drives (or should I say 'Flippy'). IDE has a Master and A Slave position for each channel. If you want to have 3 HDDs in your current setup, you will have to get a PCI EIDE controller that can handle 200 GB drives. I have 2 60 GBs and 2 61 GBs in my system (along with cdrom and cdrw), and I find that I have far more than enough, even running 2 different operating systems. (I have a PCI EIDE controller w/2 hdds on it). Brian is correct in that you do need a case that has the drive bays for this. (SCSI or EIDE does NOT matter in this) Hope this helped and didn't confuse you too much. Charles

And they are actually EIDE