I have two Via Tech. MoBo's. Both are P4PB Ultras. This MoBo has on board Raid. There is the option, in the BIOS to disable Raid. If the Raid is disabled can the two connections be used for extra IDE devises? Could IDE 1 be Hdd and a slave? IDE 2, 3, 4, for possible 6 more devises?
I know on some boards you need to enable the ATA100 RAID IDE Controller to use the RAID channels without using RAID to be able to use IDE3 and IDE4 for more devices. If you have DVD - CDRW drives, they should be placed on the primary channels as they usually don't work right on the RAID controler channels.
Linear Mode
