HELP! New to SATA - Bought a P5W-DH

[TourGuide]

Hi Everyone,

I've stuck to the PATA bandwagon now as long as I can. This board apparently requires SATA HDDs but I've never really worked with them before. I want to set up two drives so that one is the C drive I boot off and the other is D drive for capturing video and other backup data. Back in the day with SATA 1 there were many stories about having to load drivers, etc.

On this particular board, can someone help walk me through the setup procedure for this. If it was PATA, I'd be golden having done that many times, but this SATA business is new.

Thanks in advance.

-TG

 

[phile]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
Hi Everyone,

I've stuck to the PATA bandwagon now as long as I can. This board apparently requires SATA HDDs but I've never really worked with them before. I want to set up two drives so that one is the C drive I boot off and the other is D drive for capturing video and other backup data. Back in the day with SATA 1 there were many stories about having to load drivers, etc.

On this particular board, can someone help walk me through the setup procedure for this. If it was PATA, I'd be golden having done that many times, but this SATA business is new.

Thanks in advance.

-TG

Connect your two SATA drives to SATA1 (red port) and SATA3 (black port immediately to the right of the red port). The drive connected to SATA1 will be the default boot drive. That's it. By default, SATA drives are set to run in Standard IDE mode, so no special setup is required, and there is no driver to preload. However, a few native SATA features will not be available, if running as Standard IDE: NCQ (native command queuing) and hot-plugging. If you wish for these features to be available, you need to run SATA drives in AHCI mode. To do this, enter the IDE configuration page in the BIOS and set SATA to AHCI. This mode DOES require that you preload a driver (F6 during windows setup/install). You will need to prepare a floppy with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver (see link below) and hit F6 when Windows Setup asks if you need to load any drivers.


http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...ct_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101&lang=eng

Select your OS and then scroll down to Utilities, Tools and Examples. Download the first item. This is makedisk application that will help you prepare the floppy.

Note: when you're prompted to insert the disk and choose a driver, you will be presented with a list. The floppy will have drivers for several different chipsets, so make sure to scroll down until you see an option to load the ICH7R driver. If you choose the wrong driver, prepare for a BSoD in your near future.

-phil

 

[TourGuide]

Phil,

Thanks SO much. This is crystal clear. I guess I will be loading that Intel driver. There's no sense having NCQ as an available feature, then not using it. This was a HUGE help.

TG bows to you.

 

[mooseyfate]

The only feature I really want is the ability to plug and unplug an external SATA II hard drive at will. So I'm 90% sure I need AHCI.

But I ran into a little snag. Do you set up AHCI in the bios first, or install windows first? I tried AHCI first, and didn't work. This is on a virgin system though, so the problem may be elsewhere.

Also, I have ACHI options for ICH7R/DH and ICH8R. Would 8R be better? Just checking cause this thread is a couple months old.

 

[mooseyfate]

I went ahead and just tried ICH8R with the bios being set to ACHI before installing windows. The drive formatted and installed Windows (XP pro, sp2) and rebooted a couple times fine.

 

[phile]

What board are you using? If you select drivers for the incorrect chipset, you will have severe problems.

Also, if you installed Windows without loading the SATA/AHCI driver for your chipset, switching to AHCI mode is not usually as easy as changing the setting in the BIOS and then installing the drivers.

-phil

 

[mooseyfate]

ASUS P5B-E, brand new system, first time I've put one together from scratch (I've installed OS's on other machines before though).

1st try:
In Bios > Main > Configure SATA As, changed from [IDE] to [AHCI].
Downloarded drives, created floppy as instructed above.
Tried to install windows, pressed F6 when prompted... nothing seemed to happen, but it asked me to press a letter key if I wanted to install additional drivers, which is where I chose ICH7R/DH (for desktop, not plain ICH7R option).
A little later it said there was a problem and I couldn't continue.

2nd try:
In Bios > Main > Configure SATA As, kept at [AHCI].
Instead of choosing ICH7R/DH (for desktop), I choose ICH8R (for desktop).
I figured if it was the wrong driver, I'd get the same hang up as last time. But no hang up, it worked. Formatted as NTFS (only option besides NTFS quick).

Later I updated the bios, and obviously had to change the setting from [IDE] to [AHCI] again to boot. I installed all the stuff from the ASUS CD and updated it, and that worked fine.

I haven't done much with the computer since, other than installing some software and hardware, and it seems to be running fine. But did I do something wrong? Am I as risk for something bad to happen because of the way I installed? If so, I'm not real far allong and can re-install. I just turned the computer off to await your feedback. Thanks for watching out for me!

 

[phile]

If you successfully preloaded the ICH8R (desktop) SATA/AHCI driver, you should be fine. That is the correct chipset driver for your board.

-phil

 

[mooseyfate]

Rock on... thanks for the piece of mind Phile =]

 

[Bob Anderson]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
Phil,

Thanks SO much. This is crystal clear. I guess I will be loading that Intel driver. There's no sense having NCQ as an available feature, then not using it. This was a HUGE help.

TG bows to you.

--------------------

Sorry to tell you this but NCQ is currently of zero value and will actually slow read and writes down. You can prove this to yourself by using your hard drives's speed test in device manager (Seagate SATA drives, I don't know about other manufacturers). Also, applications must be specifically written with NCQ in mind. You have to do a careful reading of NCQ technology on the Seagate site, but that is the unescapable conclusion I came to. But, turning off NCQ is an option you will have, so it is not a big deal.

-Bob

 

[imported_Salamander]

Originally posted by: phile
What board are you using? If you select drivers for the incorrect chipset, you will have severe problems.

Also, if you installed Windows without loading the SATA/AHCI driver for your chipset, switching to AHCI mode is not usually as easy as changing the setting in the BIOS and then installing the drivers.

-phil

If you want to use the IDE mode for the sata hds, do you still need to load sata drivers for the chipset?

 

[phile]

Not with the P5WDH, or most boards, for that matter.

-phil

 

[mooseyfate]

Something kind of feels slow about my system (e6400, 2x1gb corsair balistix DDR2-800, ASUS P5B-E, WD 250GB SATAII enterprise hard drive). It's not slow when I'm running something, but something about it feels slow. But I haven't changed my ram voltage from stock setting (~1.8v) to ram's factory 2.2 volts setting (I've never messed with this or other overclocking, so I want to research it first to be sage). I haven't installed an OS with anything but AHCI. Anyways, it's just a feeling. It's actually quite fast, and rarely get's as high as 50% CPU usage 40% RAM usage. I guess I expected windows load time and Adobe-type-application load time to be a bigger improvement over my old system. I'll probably see more performance improvement through use while in the applications. This might have something to do with AHCI... but this is just a hunch from a rather un-experienced individual. I didn't see it as an option to turn on or off NCQ anywhere (biow or drive properties in windows).

What I'm dissapoited in is that the hot plugging doesn't seem to be working. I have an external SATAII drive (exact same hard drive in the external). Transfer speeds between the two "feel" very quick. But being SATAII, it's theoretically the speed of an internal drive. But I have to connect and power up the external drive before I turn on the computer, or it doesn't work. Shouldn't the "hot plugging" allow you to connect the external hard drive while the computer is all ready on? That's the only reason I installed with AHCI.

Anoother question... In my bios, there are the following settings:
Bios > Main > IDE Configuration > Configure SATA as [AHCI] --- was originally [IDE]
Bios > Advanced > Onboard Deviced Configuration > JMicronSATA Controler Mode [IDE]
I can only boot with the Main section set to AHCI (because that's how I installed). What about the Advanced section? I originally left it as it's [IDE] default, but I eventually tried it at [AHCI]. Both Advanced options boot Windown. Neither Advanced option allows what I understand to be "Hot Plugging". I guess the question is, should I just leave the Advanced setting at it's default [IDE] value?

 

[phile]

The e-SATA port on the P5WDH is on the JMicron controller, not the ICH7R. To get hot-plugging to work on the e-SATA, you'll need to set the JMicron controller to run SATA drives in AHCI mode. Since I haven't ever used the JMicron ports, I'm not sure how to accomplish this. Presumably, you'd need to install the JMicron drivers, and then change the setting in the BIOS. The latest version of these drivers can be found here:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5W%20DH%20Deluxe/

-phil