New to SATA; a few questions

videobruce

Senior member
Nov 27, 2001
995
3
81
I wasn't sure where to put this. Under MBs' or under Storage if I had a choice so here it is. I'm a little new to SATA devices with this first optical drive.

A Samsung SH-S203 DVD burner for one of two systems. Either a Abit NF7-S V2 (nForce2 chipset w/ two SATA ports and two IDE headers) or a Foxconn N570SM2AA (nForce5 w/ six SATA ports and two IDE headers).

The Abit box has four IDE drives, two HDDs' and two optical. This new burner would replace the existing IDE burner, but I would still have one IDE player.

The Foxconn box (new) has three IDE drives; two HDDs' and a single burner.

Both had the SATA controler disabled in the bios.

Trying the Abit system first since this is my main system (the Foxconn will be hooked yp to a HDTV), I enables the SATA controller in the biuos, then loaded the separate SATA drivers without the optional GUI interface. Drive shows in Windows and I was able to do a burn with it.

My questions are;
1. I wasn't able to boot from that drive even after I changed the order of the drives in the bios. Is there something else that has to be done?
2. Since these appear to be considered SCSI type of drives by the bios and O/S, doesn't that make it an issue durning bootup?
3. The connectors appear to be somewhat fragile as compared to the IDE headers I've been use to for the past 8 years. Has there been problems with these by snaping them to the side when you insert them (at a right angle instead of straight in)?

I haven't tried the Foxconn box yet.
 

htne

Platinum Member
Dec 31, 2001
2,360
0
76
If you need a right-angle on your SATA connector, then buy one already bent. http://www.svc.com has them, and I'm sure you can find them at many other online retailers. These cables are not really fragile, but the original ones do come loose rather easily if you bump them while working inside the box. The newer cables have a "snap-in" feature, they actually "click" into place and do not come loose easily.

In regards to boot order, this is entirely under the control of your BIOS. Some newer motherboards will automatically check all optical drives for a bootable disc during the POST. This includes two IDE opticals and two SATA opticals on my system, and I can boot from any of them.
 

videobruce

Senior member
Nov 27, 2001
995
3
81
If you need a right-angle on your SATA connector
I didn't know exactly how to describe it. I was referring to if one would 'push' a connector into a socket and the connector would twist to one side or another (at a right angle).