Oops!! SATA!!!

Hi Guys/Gals,
I decided to finally ditch the old dinosaur after coming across a coupla extra dollars (a rare occurence for me.... ) and raced out and bought an el cheapo Asus board, Athlon 3200 & 1 GB - a quantum leap for me.
The old dinosaur was (I'm ashamed to admit it) a Celeron 850 with HDD40, HDD80, DVD-RW & DVD-Rom.

OK - installed ram, installed chip/fan... OMG, there's only one IDE connector... what gives?... Bugger!! SATA!!!

I may be over-reacting but I've got little idea what I'm doing now - I mean I've heard of SATA (I've also heard of the plague) but I've never before had to deal with either....

My question would therefore be - clearly I can only use two IDE drives, so, if I was to stretch the budget and buy a SATA 250GB HDD and a SATA DVD-RW - could I run HDD40 (Master) & DVD-Rom (Slave) from the IDE connector and SATA 250GB from SATA1 and SATA DVD-RW from SATA2 (I'm assuming of course that SATA drives don't have jumper selectors.... )
And, if by any fluke-luck chance that this would be the case, which would be my primary CD drive?

Thanks for your indulgence (hoping I don't sound too stupid..... )

Den

 

Yes. And, depending on your Board's BIOS, you could probably select either optical to be your primary. Same with making either HDD your system drive or boot drive. I'm also assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that you want to use the 40 Gig ATA drive as your system drive to take advantage of the operating system and programs already on it. If yes, you want to do a "repair install" to correctly set and register your hardware and drivers.

Congratulations on the "new box ".

 

If I understand you, you want to hood a SATA HDD and a SATA burner to your two SATA connectors and then hook both a hard drive and a DVD-ROM together on your one IDE connector, right?

That sounds doable. I would boot from your SATA drive simply because it's so much newer than your older IDE drive. The speed difference simply because of that will be huge.

 

I've done it, and see no real difference in speed of boot. And BIOSs like the IDE as boot drive even if a sata is present. So I'm with Rockster2U on this.

 

Appreciate the comments Sparrow and feel that a little more "splainin'" would be helpful to all. You are oh so right that many BIOS's prefer to boot from an IDE drive if both SATA & PATA are present (drive designation is usually 0 for the PATA and 1 for the SATA or 0 & 1 for the PATA drives in the case of two IDE headers with one being populated with two PATA drives). However, I actually made no recommendation in my original post.

My assumption was that DeeGee88 was going to be removing the 40 gig from an existing machine and reprovisioning it as the system drive in the new machine which is pretty straight forward and quite do-able. As to the comments re: all the speed benefits available by using a SATA as the system drive - I'll believe it when I see it. If DeeGee88's 40 gig drive is a 7200rpm with an 8MB cache, any differences will be negligible at best. We all need to know a little more about each drive to make a call on what is going to be faster but my guess is that the latency and seek speeds of both drives are going to be similar unless the 40 is a 5400rpm drive.

 

Definitely true. Up until about 1.5 years ago I used very fast single-platter 40GB Maxtors but their cache was only 2MB. If it's a 5400rpm drive, the speed difference should be quite noticeable. He may also want to keep in mind that his older drive is approaching that point in age where the drive starts to throw errors. I put that "age" at 3 years if the data is critical. If you don't have any critical data at all, you can run the drive until it drops dead on the pavement.

I don't know if this is what you're getting at Rockster but I found no inherent speed increase between IDE and SATA. Another disappointing upgrade!

 

Hi Guys,
thanks for your replies - sorry I haven't been back sooner but I spent the day in bed with a case of flu (would rather a case of bourbon...)

Rockster, your assumption was correct. I intended using a 40GB drive from an existing machine (it's WD 7200 & 8MB Cache). My plan was to use the 40GB HDD as the system drive and the 250GB (SATA) as a data drive. I've always been of the belief (maybe erroneously) that it's a safer option virus-wise etc. to keep large amounts of data on a seperate physical drive.

Sorry I wasn't more specific about the drive specs, but my first nervous breakdown was to do with SATA and you've cleared that one up for me.

So now the question becomes - is there a speed loss with using the 40GB HDD as the system drive and the 250GB as the data drive?

Thanks for your help,
Den

 

Den:

If there is any speed differential, it will be negligible.

 

Cool Rockster - I won't get there for the next few days or so but I'll let you know how I go...

Den

 

Hi guys,
sorry for taking so long to get back, but the flu and work commitments delayed my plans....

OK - we're now at:
IDE - (Master) = 40Gb HDD, (Slave) = DVD-Rom
SATA 1 = 250Gb HDD, SATA2 = DVD-RW.

Power up, lights on, all seems to be OK.....

Set boot sequence, insert XP Pro disk, partition and format 40Gb (Fat32)....

Smile begins to fade.... as boot disk only recognises 250Gb HDD as 130Gb although BIOS sees it as 250Gb. Also only gives the option of formatting under NTFS, despite formatting the first HDD under Fat32,....

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Den

 

We have lift-off!!!!!!!

Thanks Arie - Slipstream did the trick but I wouldn't want to tackle that process after a few drinks.

Only issue I couldn't seem to fix was the file system; whichever way I went there was no provision for Fat32 on the 250Gb drive, so I bit the bullet and reformatted the whole thing under NTFS.....

Thanks also to Rockster and others for your advice - you guys can always be relied on to help.......

Den

 

Thanks for the update and congratulations on your new build. I know I speak for many others whose combined efforts make the BBS such a valuable resource - its always encouraging to get this kind of feedback.

 

Houston we have a problem!!!

I may have been a bit hasty with the "thumbs up "

New problem - power on, POST seems to take forever (HDD light going crazy). Then a message "Reboot and select proper Boot device or insert Boot media in selected Boot device and press a key.." Pressing any key repeats the message, pressing the Reset button reboots and then goes thru the same slow process, but then on to Windows. After which things seem to run normally.
I know the boot sequence is correct.
Sorry to annoy you again, any ideas?
Thanks
Den

 

First two things I'd try - confirm ATA and SATA connectors are good and tight both at the board and the devices. Disable boot floppy seek in the BIOS. Let us know if this behavior continues or concludes.

 

When you format using the WinXP install process, the largest that you can make a FAT32 partition is 34MB(or 32, whatever).

Think of it as the universe telling you that it's time to move on to NTFS. I considered myself the last person on the planet to abandon FAT32 but maybe that's not true!?!

It sounds like some bios setting is not right regarding your boot problem.

 

Hi Rockster,
I did as you suggested - no change.

I then disconnected both SATA drives, floppy drive, unplugged front sound & USBs. Reformatted the 40Gb HDD and reloaded the OS. Disconnected Primary Slave (Optical drive used to load OS) and removed all from BIOS Boot sequence except the HDD, effectively leaving only the HDD and front panel the only non-hardwired stuff connected to the MB.

Still get error - "Reboot and select proper Boot device or insert Boot media in selected Boot device and press a key.."

POST seems to stall after memory test.

Chiles4 - I have moved to NTFS (grudgingly - I don't like change that's why I've hung on to 98se for so long.... ) You could be correct about a BIOS setting but I can't get it.

Den

 

More info -

POST: (AMI BIOS v02.58)
[Press Del to enter Setup
Press F8 For BBS POPUP
1 AMD North Bridge, Rev F2
Initializing USB Controllers... Done
896MB OK]
....and then it stalls........

One thing I have noticed is that to enter BIOS at that stage - Primary IDE Master - [Not Selected], allow it to run through to the message: "Reboot and select proper Boot device or insert Boot media in selected Boot device and press a key.."
Press reset and - Primary IDE Master - [WD etc etc] and continues on to OS. Turn off and start again - back at square one - Primary IDE Master - [Not Selected]..............

This is really confusing me. Is it possible/likely that the HDD is stuffed or is there something else I'm missing?

Thanks for your indulgence,
Den

 

There will be list in your BIOS for Boot device order and you have to set that correctly. Trust me, its there.

My guess that your IDE drive will be listed as Drive 0 so you could set your boot order to CD, HDD 0, floppy and that should do the trick. I usually set mine to floppy, CD, and then whatever HDD contains my operating system.