I recently bought a 250Gb internal hdd for my dell computer.  However, when i went to install it i only had one ide socket on my mother board.  I bought a new ide strip cable to connect a second hdd to the port i already had, but then when i tried to access the drive, the speeds were ridiculously slow.  

A friend recommended buying a Raid pci card to give me additional ide sockets.  I did this, purchasing the 8212 RAID PCI CARD from ECLIPSE computers http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product.aspx?code=IO-PIDE133R  

However, when i put the card in and boot up windows XP, it is recognised and windows tries to installs it.  Windows cannot find a driver for it, even though i have inserted the cd-rom.  

The instructions are of no use as they seem to be designed for ppl who can write their own operating system, not for amateurs like me! There are no help details, and from the box i cannot even tell who makes the thing!

Any help anyone can give would be much appreciated.Hi Chris,

I had similar problems with my wireless network card.
Try removing the card software/drivers, switch off and remove the PCI card, reboot then reinstall the software then switch off and reinstall the card.

Xp will "find new hardware" and install drivers.

A bit long winded but XP can sometimes try and install from it's own database rather than the new updated drivers you installed.

HTH
Jimi've already tried that friend, but to no avail.  Has anyone got any other suggestions?What model Dell? You neglected to say. Do you need RAID capability? Or you just needed another IDE port for a secondary hard drive? WOuldn't a cable with an empty plug serve as well?

I'll await model # to investigate further......i'm running a del DIMENSION 2400 series with an Intel Celeron 2.6 ghz, and 1gb ram.  I need the card only for the additional ide socket, not raid capability.  i tried using an ide cable with two sockets, but it makes both my current hdd and my new one run ridiculously slow.  i have a friend who bought the same hdd and is running it through a raid card and says it operates at a normal speed.  any thoughts?Did you jumper both hard drives as cable select (CS) and not master and slave. Dell's like it the CS way.  The primary drive goes farthest from the motherboard on the cable.The problem i have there is i have no way of knowing what my current dell hdd is set as, it has no markings on the back.

When i first tried installing the new hdd on the single idd cable i set it first as CS, which caused lots of nasty error messages when i tried to boot windows, and then i tried slave, which seemed to work allbeit extremely slowly.  It all seems a bit of a mess to meThey've got to be both set as CS. Maybe if you did a check with belarc (free at www.belarc.com) you could find the drive's identity and check the website for jumper setings

OR  post your service tag # and we can look it up at Dell's web site and find out for certain what it shipped with. That might be even better.I used the dell website as you said to check the jumper settings.  By setting both drives as CS windows will not load, i can only IMAGINE it is looking for windows on the new hdd.  When i set them to master and slave, then i can access the drive but the speeds are monotonous.  Do you have an ideas on how to get my ide card WORKING?
Most RAID cards want the drives set as master. Since this a PCI card, check the cards driver info and see you if you have an option for bus mastering.Did you do the CS configuration on the RAID card, or on the orginal IDE channel? I am unclear about this. You shouldn't do this on the RAID card.OK heres where i am.

I bought a new hdd for my computer, and tried to link it in to my exising ide port on my motherboard as a secondary drive to my existing hdd.  Access to the new hdd was extremely slow, and access to the exisintg hdd slowed. I tried using both Master/Slave settings and CS settings.  Nothing improved.

I then bought a raid card, so that i could get another ide port to run my new hdd through, thus releasing the burden from the one on my mother board.  However the raid card will not install.  Windows recognises its there, and tries to intall it but fails to find the driver.  I have tried pointing windows to the driver on the disc, and tried downloading a new driver, and pointing windows to that.  Windows still won't find the driver.  Can anyone help?