Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Chipsets & Bios > [Solved] New build - BIOS settings for SATA drives

[Solved] New build - BIOS settings for SATA drives

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Chipsets & Bios - [Solved] New build - BIOS settings for SATA drives

Tom's Hardware: Over 1.4 million members in 6 different countries available to answer all your high-tech questions. Sign up now! Its free!
Ask the community Add a reply

Best answer from jitpublisher.

Word :    Username :           
 
OS-X   09-09-2009 at 05:36:50 AM

The build was ok. The boot was ok. The BIOS?
My main issue right now is setting up the BIOS and checking that my drives are set up properly to eventually run on Vista.

My motherboard and drives:

Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA ( intended as my main drive)
Western Digital Caviar Green 640GB SATA ( a data/storage drive)
Two Plextor SATA DVD Drives
I will be installing Vista, once the system is all set up. The HDs will NOT be RAID.


My drives are connected to the following yellow SATA ports:

SATA2_0…WD 1TB main drive
SATA2_1…WD 640GB storage drive
SATA2_2…DVD top
SATA2_3…DVD bottom

All the ports were listed in the BIOS as follows:

IDE CHANNEL 0 MASTER….WD 1TB main drive
IDE CHANNEL 0 SLAVE……..DVDR
IDE CHANNEL 1 MASTER….WD 640GB storage drive
IDE CHANNEL 1 SLAVE……..DVDR
IDE CHANNEL 2 MASTER…..NONE
IDE CHANNEL 3 MASTER…..NONE
IDE CHANNEL 4 MASTER…..NONE
IDE CHANNEL 4 SLAVE………NONE
IDE CHANNEL 5 MASTER…..NONE
IDE CHANNEL 5 SLAVE………NONE

Seems o.k. but…

a.) Shouldn’t the drives be listed as SATA PORT_0 through 3 instead of IDE CHANNELS? I poked around the other BIOS menus but couldn’t find anything to change it.

b.) If this is just the only way that the drives are recognized then shouldn’t the HDs be paired up as master/slave and likewise the DVDs?

c.) Just trying to get things set up properly for best performance from the start. Save me from having to redo things down the road. Any additional advice or suggestions for setting up the BIOS would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I just threw the windows disk into one of the DVD drives to see what happens and it booted fine. However, I canceled the install. I will wait to hear any advice before going ahead with installing the OS and all.

Thanks

Add a reply
Best answer from jitpublisher
IDE mode for XP, Xp does not contain SATA or RAID drivers.
OR during install you must use the "f6" option and load the correct drivers or XP will not find your hard drive if it is set to AHCI mode.

Vista does contain SATA and RAID drivers. It will find your drives just fine without having to load drivers if you set them to AHCI mode.

Be warned, whatever you install with, you cannot change later. (well you can, but it is a lenghty, pain in the butt, registry editing type of ordeal, you can google for it.)
Sponsored Links
Register or log in to remove.
OS-X   09-10-2009 at 12:56:17 AM

Answer for part "b", sort of.

Did some more research on other forums. It appears that Gigabyte recomends connecting DVDs to the last two yellow SATA ports: SATA2_4 and SATA2_5.

I tried it and my DVD drives moved to

IDE CHANNEL 2 MASTER…..DVD
IDE CHANNEL 3 MASTER…..DVD

This seems like where they should be listed, but I am not sure if the system would care either way.

Still need to figure out best BIOS settings to take advantage of SATA and use the right drivers (windows vs. supplied driver disks).

any ideas?

Reply to OS-X
Twoboxer   09-10-2009 at 03:27:09 AM

I have the same motherboard, and on the "Integrated Peripherals" page, SATA RAID/AHCI mode is Disabled. That sets the controller to "IDE mode". Since I had no intention of using RAID or command queuing or hotswapping, I didn't want to bother loading RAID drivers from a floppy or whatever prior the OS install.

The orange SATA ports are on a different controller, normally slightly less effective. So that's a good place to park opticals.

Reply to Twoboxer
OS-X   09-10-2009 at 06:17:06 PM

Looks like the IDE mode settings may be the safest way to go as far as Vista is concerened.

I plan on trying this:

SATA RAID/AHCI mode...........Disabled
SATA AHCI mode....................Disabled
SATA Port 0-3 Native mode....Enabled

Other options look like they are unnecessary since I also won’t be using RAID and I would rather not mess with tricky SATA driver installation during the OS installation.

My understanding is that operating a SATA device as an IDE dosn't make a noticeable differance in performance for average use.

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to OS-X
Twoboxer   09-10-2009 at 06:57:50 PM

That is my understanding as well.

Reply to Twoboxer
Bronze Motherboards badge GhislainG   09-11-2009 at 12:06:40 AM

OS-X wrote :

Looks like the IDE mode settings may be the safest way to go as far as Vista is concerened.

I plan on trying this:

SATA RAID/AHCI mode...........Disabled
SATA AHCI mode....................Disabled
SATA Port 0-3 Native mode....Enabled

Other options look like they are unnecessary since I also won’t be using RAID and I would rather not mess with tricky SATA driver installation during the OS installation.

My understanding is that operating a SATA device as an IDE dosn't make a noticeable differance in performance for average use.

You are correct, but just in case you'd like to use AHCI, Vista already includes the drivers. After installation they probably should be upgraded to the latest version available from Intel.

Reply to GhislainG
jitpublisher   09-11-2009 at 03:53:21 AM
Best answer

IDE mode for XP, Xp does not contain SATA or RAID drivers.
OR during install you must use the "f6" option and load the correct drivers or XP will not find your hard drive if it is set to AHCI mode.

Vista does contain SATA and RAID drivers. It will find your drives just fine without having to load drivers if you set them to AHCI mode.

Be warned, whatever you install with, you cannot change later. (well you can, but it is a lenghty, pain in the butt, registry editing type of ordeal, you can google for it.)

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to jitpublisher
sminlal   09-11-2009 at 06:10:08 AM

jitpublisher wrote :

IDE mode for XP, Xp does not contain SATA or RAID drivers.
Vista does contain SATA and RAID drivers. It will find your drives just fine without having to load drivers if you set them to AHCI mode.
Be warned, whatever you install with, you cannot change later. (well you can, but it is a lenghty, pain in the butt, registry editing type of ordeal, you can google for it.)

Excellent summary. IDE mode is really only there for legacy support of XP or other older operating systems - if you're using Vista or Windows 7 and you're installing from scratch you should use AHCI mode (or RAID mode if you need it).

Reply to sminlal
OS-X   09-11-2009 at 07:03:57 PM

Oops. I had completed most of my installations before I had seen the new recommendations in favor of using AHCI mode. I had been afraid that the “F6” procedure would be required to setup AHCI on Vista. Sounded pretty tricky for me.

Regardless, this info is very helpful. Especially if I ever have to do a clean reinstall with this system. Hopefully, any difference in performance with IDE mode won’t be noticeable.

The good news is that the OS install and driver updates all went fairly smoothly and everything seems to be operating properly so far. Still need to install a few utilities and my main apps.

Reply to OS-X
Pointertovoid   09-22-2009 at 04:46:58 PM

Ahci mode makes a huge difference in boot speed with Xp and 2k. No special risk associated. Definitely worth the F6 floppy operation, which is easy anyway.

Reply to Pointertovoid
Ask the community Add a reply
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Chipsets & Bios > [Solved] New build - BIOS settings for SATA drives
Go to:

There are 551 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Forum map
Bestofmedia Forum ©
2000-2009 Bestofmedia Group
Page generated in 0.422 seconds
Sponsored links
  • Ask the community now
  • Publish
Ad
Related Topics
See all relatives topics
They won a badge
Join us in greeting them