Switching from SATA 6 to SATA 3 - Sabertooth X58

[rocketczar]

Hi, I have a Sabertooth X 58 mobo and a single Seagate Barracude XT HDD (SATA 6/64mb).

I have already hooked up the HDD to the SATA 6 input and installed Windows 7 and my question is can I just unplug the HDD from the SATA 6 and plug it into the SATA 3 input without having to reformat and reinstall my OS? Would that cause a problem?

I am having to many headaches with the SATA 6 Marvell cotroller and I just want to switch to the more stable SATA 3.

Thank you from a noob.

 

[kilo_17]

Shouldn't have any problems. Just turn it off plug it into the port of choice and it should boot right up.

 

[jaquith]

Welcome to Tom's Forum!

Yes, just move it to a SATA2 port. Preferably the first SATA2 port if its the boot HDD. There's no advantage for a mechanical HDD to run on a SATA3 port. The SATA2 is 300 MB/s ports and the HDD at best is 140~150 MB/s. Oddly it's the maximum speed of the original SATAI 150 MB/s.

Further, if you have it set as AHCI then go into the BIOS and Set the Intel SATA2 -> AHCI.

Verify by checking the registry -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 or you can run Fix It.

Good Luck!

 

[rocketczar]

Thank you to both of you. I appreciate it. I just feel kind of dumb by falling into the noob trap of marketing hype. I really thought buying this HDD would let me take advantage of the 6gbs capability on the mobo but the Marvell controller causes nothing but headaches.

Oh well, I guess it's all part of being a noob. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!

 

[jaquith]

On the bright side, most SATA3 HDD's have 64MB caches vs 32MB - it helps.

Good Luck!

 

[kilo_17]

Out of curiosity what problems were the Marvell controller giving you?

 

[rocketczar]

Hi Kilo, sorry for the late response. For starters I had trouble getting BIOS to recognize it because it didn't go through the normal controller. The Seagate diagnostic tool that I downloaded didn't even recognize the drive. I ended up downloading a beta version of the Marvell controller which kind of made things okay. But then I had to install Windows 7 three times because it kept crashing while trying to install not to mention the "Bootmgr missing" episode. Then I had three BSOD reboots while trying to back up the drive, a crash reboot when I ran windows experience index and another crash reboot while trying to install Flight Sim X. I never had one problem when I had a drive hooked up to the SATA II.

Don't get me wrong though, the Sabertooth X58 is a good solid mobo, just don't bother with the virtual SATA III.

BTW, thanks again to you and Jaquith for the help. I plugged it straight into the SATA II and it now works like a dream.