Is it possible for a SATA mobo to boot with an IDE HD?

[spittledip]

I have noticed taht I am unable to get motherboards with SATA ports to boot with a hard drive that uses IDE ports. Is this true? Is there a way to get a motherboard that has SATA ports to use a PATA HD as the only HD and install an OS on it? Or, does one have to use a SATA drive in order to use a mobo with SATA ports (even though it has IDE ports)?

thanks

 

[alaricljs]

It's possible to boot from the IDE drive. However, the mobo BIOS needs to support it and be configured correctly to do so. I've never heard of a BIOS that didn't support it, but anything is possible.

 

[f4phantom2500]

of course! i have an nf4 ultra board with 4 sata ports and 2 ide ports. i have 2 ide hard drives and 1 sata drive, one of the ide's is my main drive, boots up fine. it always has, even before i threw the sata in (used to be just 2 ide drives). you have to go into the bios and change the boot order to put the ide drive in the first position, or else it might just boot from the sata by default.

 

[spittledip]

o duh! of course.. thanks

 

[f4phantom2500]

no prob

 

[spittledip]

I had to completely disable SATA to get the installation process to start. However it seems my drives are too old to handle the speed at which the data is coming at them. That is what I am assuming. They are some old EIDE drives. It seemed the more features I disabled in the BIOS the better they would do. I have one last one to test that is a more recent drive...

 

[spittledip]

I realize I should have named this thread "Is it possible to install Windows on a PATA Hard Drive using a mobo with SATA ports. So far I am not having much luck doing it. Keeps getting stuck during the loading files process in the initial stages of the install.

 

[f4phantom2500]

hm...i never had problems like that. how old are you talking here? i use 7200rpm 8mb cache wd drives (wd2000jb and wd800jb). take all of the drives out except for one ide drive then try.

 

[spittledip]

The newest one I am using is a 40 gig maxtor- this one here: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=951

 

[aatf510]

Originally posted by: spittledip
I realize I should have named this thread "Is it possible to install Windows on a PATA Hard Drive using a mobo with SATA ports. So far I am not having much luck doing it. Keeps getting stuck during the loading files process in the initial stages of the install.

It sounds like your drive is just defective...

 

[aka1nas]

If they are really EIDE (iow, pre-DMA), then it could be possible that they won't work with newer controller implementations. Frankly, those drives would be too slow to run a modern OS with.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: toattett

Originally posted by: spittledip
I realize I should have named this thread "Is it possible to install Windows on a PATA Hard Drive using a mobo with SATA ports. So far I am not having much luck doing it. Keeps getting stuck during the loading files process in the initial stages of the install.

It sounds like your drive is just defective...

The drives are fine. I checked them out less than a few months ago and was able to install windows xp without a problem on the 40 gig and 98 on the others with no problems. However, the mobo was a socket A.

If they are really EIDE (iow, pre-DMA), then it could be possible that they won't work with newer controller implementations. Frankly, those drives would be too slow to run a modern OS with.

3 of them are EIDE for real.. so no DMA lol but the 40 gig is ATA 100. Is it possible the controllers won't work right with that one too?

 

[VirtualLarry]

All EIDE drives support MWDMA mode 2 at least. Anyways, the drives and controllers should be backwards compatiblem. I don't see why you are having the problem unless there is something wrong with the drives/cables.

 

[lopri]

You may need an OS that is Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later.

 

[spittledip]

I don't think there is anything wrong with any of the hard drives as I had recently installed windows 98 on all of them and xp is actually installed on the 40 gig right now but it was with a a socket A board. It is interesting b/c I tried (and failed) to install xp on the 40 gig with a 939 board that has SATA BEFORE I successfully (and with no problems whatsoever) installed XP on it with the socket A mobo. Now with an AM2 board with SATA, again XP won't install on it. I think it is less the OS and more soemthing to do with the hardware compatibility. Also, I am using XP with SP2 so that is not it. The Cables also are fine.

edit: I also scanned the drive for problems recently and there were none.

 

[aka1nas]

Disable all of the SATA controllers in the BIOS and if it still won't work, then it's either a defective drive or it's not compatible with the IDE controllers on those boards.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Disable all of the SATA controllers in the BIOS and if it still won't work, then it's either a defective drive or it's not compatible with the IDE controllers on those boards.

Thanks, I already disabled all the SATA controllers in BIOS. I guess it just isn't comaptible with the controllers on the AM2 board.

Thanks for input all

 

[classy]

I have never seen a problem