SATA difficult to install?

[eVaoVe]

This'll be my first build, but I heard that SATA is not noob friendly, and that I should just buy an IDE drive. I also hear that a lot of people claim SATA is a lot better than IDE. Can someone clear this up? Is SATA difficult to install/setup?

 

[everman]

No problem at all. If you are installing WindowsXp on it you will need the sata driver disk for your chipset during installation. That's it

 

[EazyJeezy]

When I built my first system, I got a SATA drive that didn't come with any drivers. After hours on end of trying to figure out how to boot from it and trying to install Windows XP, I just decided to buy another IDE drive instead and use the SATA as a secondary.

It turns out that I had to partition the SATA drive before I could do anything with it. I have no clue how to do that outside of windows... :/

 

[Penguinus]

Hrm... how would you get the drivers if you are buying an OEM S-ATA drive? Do they generally come packaged with the motherboard, or do you have to make a disk yourself?

 

[phillyman36]

penguins thats my same question. Seagate(from what i hear is better than western digital for except their raptor drives) for example doesnt say specifically that you can download drivers. They have something called disk wizard which i assume help but im not sure.

 

[Penguinus]

yeah I know what you mean. I only have a few days to put together my system at home after I get my parts before I have to go down to school. I don't want to have to go through the trouble of returning something, but I would just feel wrong going with a P-ATA drive (one generation behind) for a part as important as the HDD...

 

[oneshot47]

You can download the drivers from seagate...i had to do it for my setup. I dont have the link handy but if you need it, reply to this and ill look for it.

 

[User5]

The drivers for SATA either come with your motherboard on a floppy, or I know ASUS puts them on their CD-ROM and you have to take the drivers off that and put them on a floppy.

Its really easy to install a SATA hard drive. If you fully capable of creating a floppy disc, and if you have a fully functional keyboard and have working F6, S, and ENTER keys your pretty much set

 

[eVaoVe]

My rig isn't going to have a Floppy Disk, is this going to be a problem? Also SATA does sound difficult... seems you guys are having trouble w/ it.

 

[Penguinus]

so to clarify:
will i be able to install winXP on a new S-ATA HDD if I do not have a floppy disk drive, but am able to dl drivers online? I plan on getting a samsung 160gb s-ata SP1614C HDD and an epox ep8kda3j mobo.

thanks

 

[oneshot47]

You need a floppy drive, even if you just borrow a friends for a day. Installing the drive is just like a pata drive, but with one extra step...pushing f6 when setup starts and having it install the drivers on the floppy. Thats it. Its really not hard...only for idiots.

 

[Penguinus]

Thanks a bundle oneshot. I guess I'll just stop being lazy and temporarily scavenge an old floppy drive off one of my other comps...

 

[User5]

Yeah just rip one out of another computer temporarily if you have to. You NEED a floppy drive to install a SATA hard drive.

I really don't understand what could be hard about installing a SATA hard drive. I had a problem at first, but it ended up being a connection problem with the floppy drive

Honestly, we just went over the steps. Make a floppy disc, and when installing windows, press F6, then press S, insert the floppy drive, and press ENTER and you are on your way. If you think that process is too difficult for you, I wouldn't reccomend building a computer.

 

[oneshot47]

Originally posted by: Penguinus
Thanks a bundle oneshot. I guess I'll just stop being lazy and temporarily scavenge an old floppy drive off one of my other comps...

I was bored so i found your mobo's sata drivers for d-load at this link. Hope this helps.

 

[mechBgon]

SATA can be easy to set up, or it can be difficult, depending largely on the motherboard and the SATA controllers. I see a bunch of people here saying it's easy, but I think they mean it was easy on their motherboard.

What makes you want SATA in the first place? Higher cost? Only one drive per cable? Flimsy, breakable connectors? It's just newer and so therefore it must be better? Lower performance in some cases? Did you realize that the fastest SATA drive is actually a PATA drive with a bridge chip to allow an SATA interface? Why not go for PATA, that's what I'd like to know

/ counterpoint

 

[everman]

Just to clarify, by drivers I mean your motherboard SATA chipset driver (I am assuming you are using a SATA mobo connector). You don't need a floppy if you can figure out how to create a custom winXP install disk with the driver you need. I have never done that but would like to try it, sometimes referred to "slipstreamed" I think?

 

[oneshot47]

Originally posted by: everman
Just to clarify, by drivers I mean your motherboard SATA chipset driver (I am assuming you are using a SATA mobo connector). You don't need a floppy if you can figure out how to create a custom winXP install disk with the driver you need. I have never done that but would like to try it, sometimes referred to "slipstreamed" I think?

Its a lot easier to just borrow a floppy drive though, imo.

 

[Anubis08]

I just bought a new 160 GB sata Seagate OEM and installed it on a new computer as a single drive. I have an MSI K8N Neo2 PLatinum mobo, but I just put in the windows CD and it formatted and loaded on its own: No drivers needed. The only thing you need drivers for is a Raid setup. It actually was easier than the IDE hds I have isntalled. It is completely NOOB friendly.

 

[oneshot47]

Originally posted by: Anubis08
I just bought a new 160 GB sata Seagate OEM and installed it on a new computer as a single drive. I have an MSI K8N Neo2 PLatinum mobo, but I just put in the windows CD and it formatted and loaded on its own: No drivers needed. The only thing you need drivers for is a Raid setup. It actually was easier than the IDE hds I have isntalled. It is completely NOOB friendly.

It all depends on the mobo, but the worst it should be is having to install one set of extra drivers during setup. Certainly a lot easier than manually entering the drive geometry, like you used to have to do....

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: oneshot47

Originally posted by: Anubis08
I just bought a new 160 GB sata Seagate OEM and installed it on a new computer as a single drive. I have an MSI K8N Neo2 PLatinum mobo, but I just put in the windows CD and it formatted and loaded on its own: No drivers needed. The only thing you need drivers for is a Raid setup. It actually was easier than the IDE hds I have isntalled. It is completely NOOB friendly.

It all depends on the mobo, but the worst it should be is having to install one set of extra drivers during setup. Certainly a lot easier than manually entering the drive geometry, like you used to have to do....

The worst of it is a lot worse than that, oneshot47 Check out this info from a guy who finally managed to get his Abit P4 board (which does natively support SATA!) to actually boot from the drive:

hi mechBgon

thanks for all your help.

first of all - i've built a few pcs before and never used memtest86 - its great - i'll be using it a lot from now on!

secondly, i found the problem thanks to your other thread. i'm not sure if it made any difference, but i aslo installed all the sata drivers during the windows installation - although i definitely installed an sata disk before on a different box without having to do this (but it wasnt win2003 - so maybe that needs it)

but where i think the main problem was - was in the bios settings - here are the settings that worked for me (this one is without raid - im waiting on a second disk to set up the raid):

note - these are from memory (and from your other thread) - i dont have the box in front of me atm:

Under Integrated Peripherals -> OnChip IDE Device:
IDE Bus Master - Enabled
OnChip Serial ATA - enhanced
OnChip Serial ATA Mode - ide
SATA RAID ROM - Enabled

Advanced BIOS Features:
Hard Disk Boot Priority - 1. Bootable Add-in Device
Bootable Add-in Device - Onboard sata
Boot Other Device - Enabled

Ah yes, it was so simple. He didn't need to press the F6 key, even! (although he did anyway)

Starting to see where I'm coming from? I think my post count would be several thousand lower right now if SATA were always "simple" to set up. It's currently the biggest single problem I'm trying to help people with, and not just newbies.

PATA. If it ain't broke... yeah.

 

[oneshot47]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: oneshot47

Originally posted by: Anubis08
I just bought a new 160 GB sata Seagate OEM and installed it on a new computer as a single drive. I have an MSI K8N Neo2 PLatinum mobo, but I just put in the windows CD and it formatted and loaded on its own: No drivers needed. The only thing you need drivers for is a Raid setup. It actually was easier than the IDE hds I have isntalled. It is completely NOOB friendly.

It all depends on the mobo, but the worst it should be is having to install one set of extra drivers during setup. Certainly a lot easier than manually entering the drive geometry, like you used to have to do....

The worst of it is a lot worse than that, oneshot47 Check out this info from a guy who finally managed to get his Abit P4 board (which does natively support SATA!) to actually boot from the drive:

hi mechBgon

thanks for all your help.

first of all - i've built a few pcs before and never used memtest86 - its great - i'll be using it a lot from now on!

secondly, i found the problem thanks to your other thread. i'm not sure if it made any difference, but i aslo installed all the sata drivers during the windows installation - although i definitely installed an sata disk before on a different box without having to do this (but it wasnt win2003 - so maybe that needs it)

but where i think the main problem was - was in the bios settings - here are the settings that worked for me (this one is without raid - im waiting on a second disk to set up the raid):

note - these are from memory (and from your other thread) - i dont have the box in front of me atm:

Under Integrated Peripherals -> OnChip IDE Device:
IDE Bus Master - Enabled
OnChip Serial ATA - enhanced
OnChip Serial ATA Mode - ide
SATA RAID ROM - Enabled

Advanced BIOS Features:
Hard Disk Boot Priority - 1. Bootable Add-in Device
Bootable Add-in Device - Onboard sata
Boot Other Device - Enabled

Ah yes, it was so simple. He didn't need to press the F6 key, even! (although he did anyway)

Starting to see where I'm coming from? I think my post count would be several thousand lower right now if SATA were always "simple" to set up. It's currently the biggest single problem I'm trying to help people with, and not just newbies.

PATA. If it ain't broke... yeah.

I suppose i dont really see that as being that hard...its esentially the same thing for pata though, just that its not enabled by default. I did have to mess with boot order and such too, which is intimidating to a lot of noobs Its understandable that any new tech like sata, especially since it is replacing such a long standing standard, is going to have some growing pains. But the quicker more people jump on board and help them work it all out, the better it will all be in the long run.

 

[mechBgon]

To be blunt, I think SATA is retarded. What in the world was the point of it? The only tangible attractions I can think of, that actually do anything: 1.5-meter maximum cable length (but SCSI's been available with 12-meter bus lengths for years), and hot-swap capability in theory although not advisible to try it (but SCSI's been offering working hot-swap for more than a decade). OK, and it would let you have all of your PATA connectors for optical drives if for some reason you needed four optical drives

Support it? Why? I mean HELLO, if they're going to try to make PATA obsolete, it would help if the connectors were at least somewhat durable! :frown: I will begin using SATA when it has something to offer beyond that the cables are cute, or else when PATA is finally extinct and there's no other option. This is cute enough for me... 30000rpm of Cheetah goodness. More than just cute.

Sorry for the rant, but I've been very fed-up with the whole issue after many long and frustrating attempts to help newbies get Windows installed on their SATA drives and/or to get the motherboards to actually boot from the SATA drive afterwards. :frown: