Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® RST, RAID
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Multiple optical drives on same controller

k_
Beginner
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In Windows 7 (64-bit) multiple optical drives connected on different ports on the SATA controller of my Z97 motherboard are detected as [0:0:0]. Is this "normal" behavior? Same applications only "see" the first of these drives. I am using the latest Intel drivers. Any ideas how to fix this?

 

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idata
Employee
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Hello kyriacos,

 

 

Thank you for contacting the Intel community.

 

 

I don't have to clear you're seeing this multiple optical drives, is it on the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology, if yeas can you please post a picture of this issue or a picture were you are seeing this?

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Ivan U.

 

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k_
Beginner
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As a workaround I have switched from AHCI to IDE mode in the motherboard's bios. After doing so the optical drives on the Intel controller are detected as [0:1:0], [1:1:0] etc. If I switch back to AHCI using the Intel Rapid Storage drivers all optical drives are detected as [0:0:0]. Applications that use drive letters see them, but other applications see only one drive. I hope this clarifies things.

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idata
Employee
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Thank you for the information you have kindly provided.

 

 

In this case, we use Intel® Rapid Storage Technology to create RAID volumes, if you are not creating a RAID volume there is no need to use the IRST.

 

 

Now, you are saying that you have optical drives connected on the computer, the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology was created for hard drives for you to be able to manage raid configuration and not for optical drives, so this behavior that you are seeing is most likely because you don't have the system configured to RAID mode and if you don't need RAID mode the IRST is not necessary.

 

 

 

I hope I understood well since you are mentioning optical drives instead of HDDs.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Ivan U.

 

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k_
Beginner
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I do not use RAID, but I need the latest drivers from Intel to use AHCI mode. In the motherboard bios setup there are three choices: IDE, RAID and AHCI. On the motherboard controller I have connected a SDD, a HDD and 3 optical drives. If I choose IDE in the bios setup all the drives are correctly identified, but I am stuck with the windows drivers and the limitations of IDE. If I choose AHCI then the optical drives are not all identified by some software, but I can use some of the features of AHCI (hot plug etc). I think the problem is that the optical drives when using the Intel RST drivers are not uniquely identified by the port number they are using, but they are all shown as [0:0:0]. This behavior sounds like a bug to me.

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idata
Employee
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In this case, AHCI is a driver already included on your system that allows software to communicate with Serial ATA (SATA), this is configured based on your motherboard model and is your motherboard manufacturer the one who configures it on your motherboard, at this point I strongly recommend contacting your motherboard manufacturer for better support, if there is certainly a bug it needs to be detected and managed by your motherboard manufacturer.

 

 

I understand that this is an Intel® chipset but this chipset can be alter or customized by your motherboard manufacturer so for this reason your best source of support at this point you with your computer manufacturer.

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

 

 

Ivan U.

 

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