Serial ATA questions

[HannibalL]

Hey,
Currently on 120GB Seagate Barracuda but was thinking about upgrading capacity by adding another 120/200 GB HD.
Now in relation to this I have a few questions:

1) My board is capable of supporting serial ATA harddrives but I installed Windows XP (SP2) without the serial ATA controller activated, I know there is something about having to install drivers for third party controllers at windows installation so is it possible for me to use my current parallel drive in conjunction with the serial ATA drive without having to do any god awful reinstalls, ghosting etc .....


Cheers,

 

[PizzaYummy]

That should be only for raid that you need to install drivers at windows install. You should be able to just plug it in and go.

 

[Zelmo3]

Originally posted by: PizzaYummy
That should be only for raid that you need to install drivers at windows install. You should be able to just plug it in and go.

That's half accurate. You do need to install the drivers during Windows install if you're installing Windows on the SATA drive(s), RAID or no RAID.
If you're just adding a drive, then you can install the drivers in your current running system like you would with any other hardware, and then you can use the drive.
I don't know if the driver has to be installed before the hardware, after the hardware, or if it doesn't matter. The user manual can tell you which way to go about it.