Using Microsoft drivers for HDD rather than Nvidia question

[1landshark]

I am having bootup slowdown and noticed that I am now running on Microsoft drivers for my HDD's and I used to use Nvidia drivers. I have SATA disabled in BIOS. Would going back to NVIDIA IDE drivers be a help? I just installed NVIDIA forceware 84.21 but do not have updated Nvidia IDE drivers.
Here is my configuaration:
Asus A8n-SLI Deluxe MB
AMD Dual core X2 4400
Evga Nvidia 6800 GT
2 Hitacho 82 GB SATA HDD's

 

[John]

The NVIDIA SW IDE drivers may help performance a bit, but a slow boot can be the result of other thing such as:

[*]bad or failing HDD
[*]lots of startup apps & unecessary services

 

[1landshark]

Thanks John. Do you know what the latest NVIDIA SW IDE drivers are? I'll try them.
Also only 2 startup apps - Webroot SpySweeper and Zone alarm. I control services pretty good and nothing is added. I check it all the time with "What's Running".
What is best way to check if my HDD is defective?
Thanks again

 

[1landshark]

John, Another question.
I have Hitachi SATA HDD's but have SATA disabled in BIOS because I don't use SATA. Would I be better off enabling it. I have 2 HDD's and use one as a Norton Ghost 9.0 bootable copy of original HDD. I just found out when I disconnected my C drive that my backup drive will not boot for some reason and I just made a bootable copy a few days ago - a little disconcerting.
Any suggestions
Thanks