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Sata? Ide? How to tell?

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Sata? Ide? How to tell?

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Jdm240sx   06-04-2007 at 06:06:51 AM

well i just put my computer together and i was wondering how can i tell which mode my hard drive is in?
i didnt have to install the sata driver with a boot disk like i normally would
i assumed that the motherboard automatically changed it into ide? or did it already have the drivers?

how can i tell if im in sata or ide mode?

Processor : Amd X2 5200
Motherboard: Biostar Tforce 570 Sli
Hard Drive: Western Digital 160 Gb 16Mb Sata 3.0

thanks in advance!

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locky28   06-04-2007 at 07:04:36 AM
- 0 +

http://sierra-cables.com/SATA/Images/SATA-Signal-Cable-1.jpg
SATA Cable or Serial-ATA

http://www.gshop.com.au/images/ide_133_cable.jpg
IDE/ATA Cable

As munkey said they are different interfaces and use different cables to connect your mobo to your HDD.

IDE is slowly dieing (thank-god) and the faster, prettier, and easier to cable manage SATA interface is taking over.

SATA II refers to somewhat of a revision of SATA with 300mb/s buffer. No real advantage over conventional SATA in the desktop space.

Reply to locky28
apache_lives   06-04-2007 at 07:33:44 AM
- 0 +

i think what he means is what mode is the sata ports working, and as in IDE (compatibility) mode or sata (native/NCQ/raid etc) mode, and for that question, check your bios!

Reply to apache_lives
Jdm240sx   06-04-2007 at 10:14:14 PM
- 0 +

yeah thats what i mean apache

i looked in my bios but i cant seem to find it all it says is WDC 160gb and all those funny characters afterward
is there any other way to determine what mode its operating in

Reply to Jdm240sx
g-paw   06-05-2007 at 12:47:20 AM
- 0 +

If all your hard dirves and optical drives are recognized, then the BIOS are set correctly for the drives. Check the mobo manual to see where you can find your drive settings, usually in Advanced and on board devices in the BIOS

Reply to g-paw
frozencpu   06-05-2007 at 01:10:39 AM
- 0 +

Easy way is to look in device manager under IDE.

Reply to frozencpu
apache_lives   06-05-2007 at 02:09:47 PM
- 0 +

Quote :

yeah thats what i mean apache

i looked in my bios but i cant seem to find it all it says is WDC 160gb and all those funny characters afterward
is there any other way to determine what mode its operating in



its not in the hdd area its somewhere in another menu, but either way it wont matter too much performance wise ;)

Reply to apache_lives
Merc14   06-05-2007 at 02:39:04 PM
- 0 +

The "F6 Drivers" you are referring to are for RAID. SATA doesn't require that you load a driver to run it, any more than you need to load a driver to run an IDE drive.

May I recommend that you google RAID, SATA and IDE and do a little research so that you'll have a better understanding of what your system is running, how it operates, what your system is capable of and all the options available to you. Afterall, you paid for these capabilities in your chipsets and are missing out on some excellent options available to you, like RAID, due to a lack of understanding. RAID 0 is great!

Reply to Merc14
piratepast40   06-05-2007 at 03:20:42 PM
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Quote :

The "F6 Drivers" you are referring to are for RAID. SATA doesn't require that you load a driver to run it, any more than you need to load a driver to run an IDE drive.



That may be true for that motherboard but not for all. Some integrated controller chipsets DO require the manufacturers drivers for SATA.

Reply to piratepast40
Damon Line   10-09-2007 at 06:39:48 PM
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If you installed Windows on a SATA drive without installing additional drivers through the F6 option, your drive is operating in IDE mode.

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to Damon Line
Zorg   10-09-2007 at 07:59:49 PM
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Damon Line wrote :

If you installed Windows on a SATA drive without installing additional drivers through the F6 option, your drive is operating in IDE mode.

Yup.

Reply to Zorg
joex444   10-09-2007 at 08:42:22 PM
- 0 +

I'd like to point out that your method of determining based on F6 drivers only works for Windows XP.

Under Vista, I don't have to provide it any drivers for my ICH8R RAID drivers -- it finds them itself and shows my arrays without any prompts or drivers being manually loaded.

------------------------------ Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 @ 2.93GHz (366x8)
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Rev 3.3 / F11
6GB 976MHz DDR2 5-5-5-15 (2GB OCZ, 4GB G.Skill)
4x320GB RAID5 (Storage) Seagate 7200.10
Reply to joex444
Zorg   10-09-2007 at 09:52:06 PM
- 0 +

I don't/won't use Vista. I guess he will have to look in the BIOS if he is using Vista.

Reply to Zorg
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