What is ata2 ?

[Joel]

On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 18:44:18 -0700 (PDT)
Rob <spamrefuse at yahoo.com> wrote

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm running FreeBSD on a range of PCs, from Pentium-1
> (60 MHz) to Pentium-4 (2.60GHz), though none but one
> has a 'ata2' line in the dmesg output:
> 
>  ata0: channel #0 on atapci0
>  ata1: channel #1 on atapci0
>  ...
>  ata2: <Generic ESDI/IDE/ATA controller> at port
>        0x36e-0x36f,0x168-0x16f irq 10 on isa0
>  ad0: 6149MB <QUANTUM FIREBALL EX6.4A/A0A.0D00>
>       [13328/15/63] at ata0-master UDMA33
>  ad1: 4892MB <QUANTUM FIREBALL EL5.1A/A08.1100>
>       [10602/15/63] at ata0-slave UDMA33
>  acd0: CDROM <GCR-8521B/1.02> at ata1-master PIO4
> 
> What is so special about this particular PC, that it
> has an ata2, unlike all other PCs I have?

Think inside the box? (sorry. bad joke, I know.) 

If you look inside the box, do you find, among the controller cards
plugged into the bus, an ATA/IDE controller card?

Another thought that comes to mind is the USB<->ATA converters.

> Can I add more than 4 disks (2 masters + 2 slaves)
> to this PC? Or is this ata2 for something else?

From here, with the limited information you've provided, I'm guessing
you can, if you have the cables and the spare power connectors.

--
Joel Rees   <rees at ddcom.co.jp>
digitcom, inc.   株式会社デジコム
Kobe, Japan   +81-78-672-8800
** <http://www.ddcom.co.jp> **