New to SATA; a few questions

[videobruce]

I wasn't sure where to put this. Under MBs' or under Storage if I had a choice so here it is. I'm a little new to SATA devices with this first optical drive.

A Samsung SH-S203 DVD burner for one of two systems. Either a Abit NF7-S V2 (nForce2 chipset w/ two SATA ports and two IDE headers) or a Foxconn N570SM2AA (nForce5 w/ six SATA ports and two IDE headers).

The Abit box has four IDE drives, two HDDs' and two optical. This new burner would replace the existing IDE burner, but I would still have one IDE player.

The Foxconn box (new) has three IDE drives; two HDDs' and a single burner.

Both had the SATA controler disabled in the bios.

Trying the Abit system first since this is my main system (the Foxconn will be hooked yp to a HDTV), I enables the SATA controller in the biuos, then loaded the separate SATA drivers without the optional GUI interface. Drive shows in Windows and I was able to do a burn with it.

My questions are;
1. I wasn't able to boot from that drive even after I changed the order of the drives in the bios. Is there something else that has to be done?
2. Since these appear to be considered SCSI type of drives by the bios and O/S, doesn't that make it an issue durning bootup?
3. The connectors appear to be somewhat fragile as compared to the IDE headers I've been use to for the past 8 years. Has there been problems with these by snaping them to the side when you insert them (at a right angle instead of straight in)?

I haven't tried the Foxconn box yet.

[sabregen]

IIRC, the nforce series chipsets did not support optical SATA drives until nforce 430 series, meaning that your nforce 2 board will likely only support hard drives on the SATA ports, hence the boot issues. I had an NS7-S 2.0 a few years back, but I have since gotten rid of it, and cannot confirm this to be absolutely true. I can say that my friend had a DFI Nforce 4 Ultra board (S939) and had to buy an Adaptec PCI SATA controller to get his Plextor SATA DVD burner functioning properly.

[videobruce]

Which makes this a Bios issue??
The drive does show if I choose the ROM option in the Bios.

[sabregen]

it makes it a chipset issue. The BIOS will have to be turned on for the SATA controller, in order to even use the drive, or see it in Windows. However, you will likely be unable to boor from a disk in the drive, or use the drive in Windows due to the lack of optical SATA drive support on the nforce 2 chipsets. I may be wrong, maybe they fixed the issues with BIOs updates. At the time of release of SATA optical drives, and the days of the Nforce2 chipsets being very prevalent, I recall this being a big problem for a lot of people.

[videobruce]

At the time of release of SATA optical drives, and the days of the Nforce2 chipsets being very prevalent, I recall this being a big problem for a lot of people. Figures. :mad:

[scoob8000]

I might be able to help you out by means of a trade (PM sent)

[videobruce]

Thanks, but it isn't the drive. That works ok as I just got it.