SATAii HD. IDE or ACHI

[niceguygaurav]

Hi all, I have just built a new system and am trying to install my 200 GB SATAii Maxtor HD.

The motherboard is ConRoeXFire-eSATA2made by Asrock.

In the bios the system asks me which mode I want to run my SATA drive on. The options are RAID, IDE or ACHI (or something very similar).

I don’t want RAID and ideally nor IDE so I select ACHI. When trying to install XP I have created a SATA disk from both the motherboard CD and the Asrock website, however ever time I go to select ICHR7 and click OK (During xp setup after pressing F6) I get an error on the disk.

I have swapped the disks but that does not fix the problem, I guess I am asking if it would make a difference if I picked IDE (tested and XP installed fine) else does anyone known where I can get another SATA disk with the south bridge controller software on it.

Thanks in advance


G.

P.s this system is for gaming!

[Midknyte]

just run it in IDE emulation mode. that should get you around using the F6 option. try it.

[Sterling_Aug]

If that doesn't work keep trying different options until it works. You have nothing to lose but time.

[rond36]

Your S-ATA II hard drive is an IDE hard drive, what is wrong with running it in that mode?

P-ATA, S-ATA, S-ATA II, SAS, and SCSI hard drives are all IDE drives.

IDE = Integrated Drive Electronics > The hard drive controller is integrated into the drive instead of on the motherboard which only has a host bus adaptor.

Almost all hard drives produced after 1986 are IDE drives


Advanced Host Controller Interface
From Wikipedia

The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a hardware mechanism that allows software to communicate with Serial ATA devices such as host bus adaptors. The specification details a system memory structure for computer hardware vendors, in order to transfer data between system memory and the device.

The AHCI protocol was announced by Intel in a May 2003 press release.

Note: Enabling AHCI mode in BIOS may cause problems with any already installed Operating System, and may require re-installing the OS. Microsoft Windows requires a separate driver diskette for installation on AHCI-enabled disks, using the F6 Installation method. Failure to do so will spawn a 0x7B BSOD STOP error. Switching to AHCI requires installing new drivers before changing BIOS settings. Some later versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2 include limited AHCI/SATA support