ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Hardrive Configuration

[Scott46835]

I just upgraded to a ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard with a Western Digital SATAII 3.0 hard drive (WD2500KS), but I'm not sure if I have the hard drive running at its maximum capability. When I installed Windows XP, I got an error message when I got to the "Specify Additional Device" part to load the SATA II drivers. So, I installed XP without the SATA drivers, and loaded them later. After loading the drivers, I was able to switch the BIOS in the IDE Configuration section to "SATA mode" from "IDE mode". However, now that I finally got a reply from ASRock, they say I need to reinstall XP. But I've spent alot of time this last week loading other drivers and installing applications, etc. and hate to reinstall my OS. My question is whether there is a way to check to see whether my hardrive is running in/at SATA II 3.0 mode/speeds? Thanks.

Scott

P.S. Does anyone know whether in the BIOS (v. 1.5) what the difference is between "Normal" and "Strong" just under the SATA mode section in IDE Configuration?

 

[Athlon64SSE3]

I'm having big problems with a sataII drive from hitachi on this motherboard . Don't worry, you already are using sataII mode. Try the Strong setting...it must be a faster setting than the Normal one...if it is working. My sataII drive is giving me a lot of headache...it's not working at all on sataII controller :-(...and it's giving me blue screens on the sata1's one....without any driver.

 

[boake]

We got another brother.
Maybe force be with you.

 

[Scott46835]

OK, I found a couple hard drive utilities, but I'm getting conflicting results. HD Tune 2.52 produced a benchmark burst rate of 113.9 MB/sec, which appears to be slow for a SATA II drive rated up to 300 MB/sec. It is also showing on the "info" page at the bottom right side:

Standard: ATA/ATAPI - SATA II
Supported: UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133)
Active: UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133)

This suggests to me that I am NOT running in SATA II mode off the JMicron controller.

However, using another utility, HD Tach, I get a burst speed of about 230 MB/sec, which is consitent with results I've seen in reviews.

So, which results do I believe? Or should I just be safe and reinstall XP? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Arkham]

So let me get this straight... If I'm installing this mobo from scratch with a new SATA2 drive (Samsung Spinpoint 250GB), I'll have to manually install SATA2 drivers??? How do I even get to that point if it won't recognize SATA2 drives?

Do I have to install XP with the drive in SATA mode on the SATA connector, then download the drivers (from where??), and then install the drivers, then re-jumper and reattach the drive as SATA2?

I didn't realize this was going to be such a PITA. I thought most of the problems were confined to the Hitachi drive.

 

[Scott46835]

The correct way to install the SATA2 drive on this board is to put the drivers on a floppy disk, then when XP install begins hit F6 when you see a note at the bottom about installing third party drivers. Later in the install it will ask you to insert the disk. My problem was that I neglected to do this when installing XP, and don't want to start from scratch reinstalling my drivers and programs if I don't have to.

 

[Arkham]

Ah, that's pretty straight forward then. Thank you for the clarification!

Now, where do I find those SATA2 drivers? Is there a link available that would lead me to the absolute latest drivers? I've downloaded the latest ULI "integrated" drivers, 2.13 I believe, and I want to be sure I have the latest ones on my other HD so I don't have to touch the Asrock install disk.

EDIT: I just found some 'beta' drivers, "JMAHCI_20050727V200.zip" -- so I'll try those when I install.

Thanks!

 

[Scott46835]

You should be able to find the latest drivers on your motherboard manufacturers website. Do you have the same motherboard? If so, let me know if you find any newer drivers then on the CD as it looks like I'm going to have to reinstall XP.