[K.B.]

Not sure I've followed you, but you shouldn't mix hard drives and CD / DVD drives on the same ATA. There is no problem with having two hard drives on the same ATA. Impossible to say what your board is capable of without looking at the manual (you've done that of course?). Once you have everything up and running with 2 hard drives, try putting the third drive in the RAID ATA slot and see what happens. Failing that, do what everyone else does, and make the third drive external, preferably firewire.

Many folk here will tell you you don't need a third drive.

Or you could get a fourth drive and go RAID. Probably cheaper than buying an external.

Or even copy my first PT setup. One drive for system & PT drive, and two others in a RAID setup for data. Go for RAID 1.

So much choice. What to do, eh?

Search the DUC above. It's all there.