How to switch back to SATA after xp install

I have a GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard. I did a fresh install of windows xp on a WD 250gb SATA II hdd. At first the install said it didn't find any harddrives so I changed the setting in BIOS to IDE mode. Install went just fine. I installed all the updates including sp3. I also installed all the drivers that came on the Gigabyte motherboard CD (including chipset/SATA drivers). Now I would like to switch back to SATA instead of IDE mode. I have 3 options in BIOS: IDE, ACHI (or something), or RAID. I only have one drive so I selected ACHI but computer keeps restarting before 2 xp loading bars go across the screen. Still works fine in IDE mode. How do I get SATA working? Thanks.

You can ignore the above response -- the IDE/AHCI/RAID selector in the BIOS has nothing to do with the physical drive connection.

To switch your hard drive mode from IDE to AHCI, you will need to follow the procedure in the sticky at the top of the forum Switching Storage Controllers without Reinstalling Windows.

If you don't want to go through that procedure, you can reinstall Windows with the BIOS selected to AHCI, and use "F6" during the Windows installation to load the AHCI SATA drivers. You will need to load the drivers from a floppy if you are installing Windows XP, you can load them from floppy, CD-ROM, or USB if you are installing Windows Vista. If you want to install Windows XP and don't have a floppy drive, you will need to make a custom Windows XP installation CD using NLite, embedding the SATA drivers into the custom installation CD.

Ok cool so I guess there's no real reason to go through all that trouble if the drive is already operating at SATA II speeds. Thanks guys.

UPDATE: I was looking through my BIOS and I saw an option that enabled SATA/RAID mode but kept two of the SATA ports operating as IDE at the same time. So I followed SomeJoe's advice and went through the guide. I enabled SATA and connected my hard drive to the SATA port that was operating as IDE. When I booted into windows, the found new hardware wizard started up saying it found a new PCI device, which I'm assuming is the RAID/SATA controller. It searched the motherboard CD for the proper driver and installed it (it found 3 drivers but they all had the same driver version so I couldn't tell the difference, I just picked the first one). So I got the SATA working as SATA should be. HOWEVER, with SATA enabled, windows hangs on boot up. At the end of the 3rd loading bar, it freezes every time. It freezes for about 10 seconds then continues to boot up just fine. For now I've left everything as IDE because that pause during boot up is very annoying.