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Simple question on SATA HD's

1Wolf

1Wolf

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
439
Forgive me if this is a silly question, I'm learning :)

My system has no IDE drives installed. Only SATA HD and SATA DVD Drive...

when the system boots and the Phoenix BIOS is 'detecting' drives...it says "Detecting IDE Drives...", then it lists my HD and DVD...

Is this normal? Or have I set something up incorrectly?

There were some BIOS settings that I was unsure about...I left these at the default...should I have changed them?

OnChip IDE Channel0 (Defaults to enabled)
Primary Master PIO (Defaults to auto)
Primary Slave PIO (Defaults to Auto)
Primary Master UDMA (Defaults to Auto)
Primary Slave UDMA (Defaults to Auto)
IDE DMA Transfer Access (Defaults to enabled)
IDE Prefetch Mode (Defaults to Enabled).

IDE HDD Block Mode (Defaults to Enabled)

Thanks!
 
One more for the road. :)

There should be a setting in the BIOS to configure SATA drives as IDE or AHCI (and maybe RAID). The IDE (legacy) mode allows the drives to be recognized by the OS without installing SATA drivers. They appear as IDE.

If you want to make use of SATA advanced features such as NCQ and hotswapping, then set up the OS in AHCI mode and provide the drivers when asked (press F6). You can also slipstream the drivers into a new/custom installation CD/DVD.

If you've set up the OS in IDE mode, then decide to change the BIOS setting to AHCI, the OS will fail to boot. You'll need to do a repair install to get the SATA drivers installed.
 
lol...hardBBQ to the rescue again ;)

Nope...no mention of AHCI in the BIOS in any way, shape, or form. Its an Award BIOS...I double-checked the manual for any mention of AHCI as well. In the BIOS, the HD and DVD do read as "SATA" drives.

How can I tell if XP and Vista are setup in IDE mode or set up to use the advanced SATA features? Is there something I can look at in Vista and XP that would indicate which mode its in?
 
If there is no AHCI or SATA mode option, then maybe your board just supports legacy operation.

You will know for certain that your drives are in IDE mode if you can set up the OS without having to install any SATA drivers.

IDE mode is convenient, anyway.

Edit: Just to add, you probably wouldn't notice any performance difference with AHCI in a typical desktop environment. NCQ can actually cause a slight loss in performance for single users.
 
Disable the IDE channel.

I suspect the message, detecting IDE drives, is looking for IDE drives but not finding any. The listing of SATA drives proceeds without any message about looking for them.
 
Well...I didn't install any SATA drivers for my SATA Hard Drive or SATA DVD Drive during the install of either Vista or XP. After XP was installed....I ran loaded the drivers that came with the motherboard which loaded SATA drivers.

In the "BIOS load screen"...like GeorgeHR says...it says "Detecting IDE drives..." and then it lists my first SATA drive, then my second SATA drive, then still says "Detecting IDE drives" below that...so maybe he's right and its just not finding IDE drives. I don't understand. I followed the suggestion and disabled the first of my previously mentioned BIOS options (Set OnChip IDE Channel to "Disabled", which also set the PIO and UDMA BIOS settings that I previously mentioned to "Disabled") and then rebooted...but it still says "Detecting IDE drives..."

I don't have any IDE drives (Unless my floppy drive counts)

I booted into XP...and, in Device Manager, under "Disk Drives", it lists my SATA Seagate as:

STsomenumber OAS SCSI Disk Device

Below, in the device manager tree...under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", it lists:

NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Standard Dual Channel PCI Dual Channel Controller

Lastly....if I right click on one of those nForce Serial ATA Controller entries...and select "Properties"

There is a "Port 0" and "Port 1" tab at the top...on the "Port 0" tab is a drop down that says

"Transfer Mode" with "DMA" selected
A checkbox that is checked that is labelled "Let BIOS Select Transfer Mode"
and another checkbox that is checked that is labelled "Enable Command Queuing"

Which I'm guessing would be the NCQ...

So, based on this information....do you think this means I screwed up and I should reinstall XP to be safe? Should I "Disable" the BIOS options that GeorgeHR recommended and then reinstall XP?

XP would be a simple reinstall if that is what is necessary...as at this point...I've only JUST got the OS installed....and not installed any drivers other than the mobo drivers.
 
I guess I jumped to conclusions. Your board already has basic SATA driver support in XP if you have NCQ enabled. No need to re-install XP if it actually works. As for the Detecting IDE message, there might be another option in the BIOS to turn off and completely disable IDE detection.
 
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