Gigabyte bios help needed

[fsh42na]

I have a total of 4 SATA hard drives that I want to run non-raid
I have 2 SATA dvd burners and 1 ide dvd burner.

My board has a total of 8 SATA ports and 1 ide.
I'd like to run the 4 SATA HD's along with the 2 SATA dvd burners off the ICH9R ports
The remaining ide burner will be run off my parallel port.

My bios options for the ICH9R Southbridge are:


SATA RAID/AHCI MODE:

diabled: disable RAID for the SATA controllers and configures the SATA controllers to PATA mode (default)

AHCI:: Configures the SATA controllers to AHCI mode........

RAID: Enables RAID for the SATA controllers.

SATA PORT 0-3 NATIVE MODE

Disabled: Allows the SATA controllers to operate in Legacy IDE mode. (Irqs can't be shared. Set this option to disabled if using OS not supporting Native mode (win 9X/ME) (default)

Enabled: Allows the SATA controllers to operate in Native IDE mode. Enable Native IDE if you wish to install OS that supports native mode ( WinXP/2000)


Similarly for the Giga SATA2 chip (Jmicron)

I have the options of:

Enabling or disabling the IDE and SATA controllers integrated in the Giga SATA2 chip (default: enabled)

Enabling or disabling RAID for the SATA controller integrated in the Giga SATA2 chip or configures the SATA controller to AHCI mode:

Ide: Disables RAID for the SATA controller and configures the SATA controller to PATA mode: (default)

AHCI: Configures the SATA controller to AHCI mode. AHCI specification allows the storage driver to enable advanced SATA features like NCQ and hot plug

Raid/IDE: Enables RAID for the SATA controller. (The ide controller still operates in PATA mode.

I just installed my OS using the AHCI option for the ICH9R; enabled native mode
and Enabled for the Giga SATA2 chip along with AHCI mode.
Because the boot up time was too long, I changed to:

disable RAID = configures SATA to PATA mode
Enabled for native ide

Enabled for the Giga SATA2 chip along with IDE mode

things seem to be running OK right now. However, I did run across a configuration last night that gave me BSOD during OS install. I think it had to do with my inadvertently creating a bios setting combination (ide with AHCI??) that borked the OS.

Is there a hard and fast rule on how to configure the SATA; ide; AHCI; raid functions in this type of bios so as to avoid BSOD's?
Thanks for reading my "novel" above.




My rig:

Gigabyte P35 DS4
Quad 6600 GO; Tuniq tower
Gskill 2x1gb DDR2 800; 1:1 ratio with Vdimm +0.25
EVGA 6600GTS 640 mb
Samsung SATA DVD's x 2
Benq 1655 ide
WD 500gb SATA drives x 2
Samsung 500gb SATA x 1
Seagate 500gb SATA x 1
Onboard sound
Corsair HX 620 watt PS
Gigabyte Aurora 570 case w/ 3 120mm fans

 

[BillParrish]

The easiest way is to install the pre-install drivers for raid for both the intel and Gigabyte/jmicon chips during OS install and run the Intel chip in raid mode, native support.

Before installing the OS, boot and set the ICH9 to raid and native.

set the gigabyte to Raid/IDE mode.

You will NOT be running the SATA hard drives in raid mode only taking advantge of the NCQ and AHCI built into raid and will have the raid capability availble if you want it later (it is a bitch to install later without wiping your OS etc.)

reboot and hit ctrl I when prompted and your 4 disks should show up as stand alone disks.

reboot from the OS install CD.

It should see all your stuff.

be ready to hit F6 (XP, not sure about vista) and feed it the pre-install drivers for both controller chips, just follow the instructions carefully, for the Gigabyte/jmicron pick the first entry in the list.

This method gives your hard drives all the advanced features and speed and allows the flexiablity of later going to raid. There is no downside that I am aware of other than needing a floppy in the system for XP to install the drivers from. As you are loading the base drivers manually, you are sure what you need is installed instead of worrying if the OS picked up what is attached and loaded (or not) the correct drivers.

Double check, some drives require a jumper removal or (Hitachi) running a utility to enable 3.0Gb/s operation or advanced SATA features. (stupid but true).

You MUST be super carefull that if for any reason you clear the cmos or load factory defaults you restore the settings above, It will not hurt anything but you will get "boot disk not found" or "ntldr not found" messages.

Loading the preinstall drivers takes only a few minutes and just eliminates all questions of (is it enabled, am I getting all I can, etc. etc. ). and raid native raid/ide is easy to remember.