A question on SATA...

10-03-2006, 19:22

Im thinking on buying a new Maxtor SATA drive. This one to be exact.

Question is can I still use an IDE drive as a secondary as well as the SATA as primary ? Would this SATA drive come with a driver disk, because I have only played around with SATA once and it was a pain in the **** installing Windows.

TIA guys. (and gals)

Scrubbs · 10-03-2006, 19:24

depends on your mobo I would think?
Mine can run both (so it says on the packet)

Strzelecki · 10-03-2006, 19:27

To the 1st question, yes. You can use IDE and SATA drives at the same time. 2nd question, no. Drivers for your SATA controller, which is built into your motherboard or an add-on card are included with the motherboard/system. You have to press F6 when prompted after booting off the XP cd for a new install to a SATA drive, unless your motherboard BIOS support IDE emulation, in which many cases the SATA drive is seen as a IDE drive by the XP installation.

10-03-2006, 20:11

If it helps, my motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI with F11 Bios.

Im assuming the SATA controller is run via the nForce 4 chipset ? If so, how would I go about using the latest driver off nvidia.com. I believe the latest version is 6.70.

10-03-2006, 20:20

Whats the sata controller? if its part of the nforce chipset then you may well not need a driver at all.My nforce 3 motherboard has 2 sata controllers which all show up when you install windows no drivers needed

10-03-2006, 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Whats the sata controller?

Errmm... pass. Sorry, but this is the first time I have really thought about SATA as an option.

Specs for my board are here

Mauldor · 10-03-2006, 21:36

On my ABIT Nforce 2 Board I had to install A Driver off floppy on F6 Part for windows to see it at all. Best to only have the SATA Drive otherwise you can end of with Windows on the E Drive as it picks up PATA First (C & D) and then SATA.

My other two system which also have both though pick up the drive without any drivers needed in the Install. Your Best option is as follows:

Stick only the SATA Drive in and no others.
Try and Install Windows - see if it picks it up.
If not - grab the drivers and plonk on floppy
Once Windows is Installed, you can stick the other drives back in.