Boot from SATA HDs? (865PE chipsets)

[Ronald Rey]

I was wondering if other makes of motherboards with non-RAID 865PE chipsets support a
"booting" SATA HD (to WinXP)? Especially if there is also a non-booting PATA HD in the
system on one of the standard IDE channels?

Would this be a BIOS issue or a limitation of the 865PE chipset (non-RAID)?

My board's support website has a statement in the FAQ section that says the DFI PS83-BL rev.
A does not support a "booting" SATA HD ........ That note was dated back in May 2003. Since
then however, they have released 4 BIOS updates for improving lots of other good stuff, but
based on my test last night, it looks like I'll have to wait still longer for a BIOS update
that gives me the ability to boot from a SATA HD (assuming the 865PE chipset, etc supports
that feature). The SATA I bought yesterday works fine as a logical non-booting HD but will
not boot if cloned from my current PATA booting drive (using Ghost 2003 in a direct
Disk-to-Disk cloning).

I need to start pushing DFI's tech support for another BIOS update depending on what
feedback I get here.

Thanks everybody ....... RR

 

[Andrew Schulman]

I was wondering if other makes of motherboards with non-RAID 865PE
chipsets support a

"booting" SATA HD (to WinXP)? Especially if there is also a non-booting PATA HD in the
system on one of the standard IDE channels?

IIRC, my 865 board (Abit IS7) will boot from an SATA drive in "SATA
only" mode, where it only sees the SATAs. In "Combined" or "Enhanced"
modes, where it sees both PATA and SATA, it will only boot from a PATA
drive. I use Enhanced mode and install my boot loader (grub) on the
PATA drive. From there I can boot into Linux, which lives on an SATA
drive, so I know that can be done. I can also boot into Win2K, which
lives on a PATA-- again IIRC, the W2K boot loader is finicky about
living on the boot drive, so I had to put at least my C: drive there.

Good luck,
Andrew.

 

[noone]

IIRC, my 865 board (Abit IS7) will boot from an SATA drive in "SATA
only" mode, where it only sees the SATAs. In "Combined" or "Enhanced"
modes, where it sees both PATA and SATA, it will only boot from a PATA
drive. I use Enhanced mode and install my boot loader (grub) on the
PATA drive. From there I can boot into Linux, which lives on an SATA
drive, so I know that can be done. I can also boot into Win2K, which
lives on a PATA-- again IIRC, the W2K boot loader is finicky about
living on the boot drive, so I had to put at least my C: drive there.

not true; I have an IS7 set for enhanced mode, only HD is SATA RAID 0 and
it boots just fine.

 

[Ronald Rey]

Are you using Windows XP?

not true; I have an IS7 set for enhanced mode, only HD is SATA RAID 0 and
it boots just fine.

 

[noone]

yes, xp pro, pair of SATA on ICH5R (IDE-3 and IDE-4, RAID 0), CDROM on
IDE1, zip on IDE2. No probs...

 

[Stephen Williams]

I was wondering if other makes of motherboards with non-RAID 865PE
chipsets support a

"booting" SATA HD (to WinXP)? Especially if there is also a non-booting PATA HD in the
system on one of the standard IDE channels?

Would this be a BIOS issue or a limitation of the 865PE chipset (non-RAID)?

My board's support website has a statement in the FAQ section that says the DFI PS83-BL rev.
A does not support a "booting" SATA HD ........ That note was dated back in May 2003. Since
then however, they have released 4 BIOS updates for improving lots of other good stuff, but
based on my test last night, it looks like I'll have to wait still longer for a BIOS update
that gives me the ability to boot from a SATA HD (assuming the 865PE chipset, etc supports
that feature). The SATA I bought yesterday works fine as a logical non-booting HD but will
not boot if cloned from my current PATA booting drive (using Ghost 2003 in a direct
Disk-to-Disk cloning).

I need to start pushing DFI's tech support for another BIOS update depending on what
feedback I get here.

Thanks everybody ....... RR

I was able to boot from a SATA drive while i had a PATA drive installed on
the following boards:

Albatron 865PE Pro (865PE)
Abit IC7-G (875P)
Soltek SL-86SPE-L (865PE)

it also works fine on my Gigabyte GA-8KNXP (875P)

that's without any boot manager programs, and without storing any boot
information on the PATA drive.

We use Intel based Gigabyte boards at work for our better P4 systems. As
long as they have the latest BIOS, then we have no trouble running the SATA
in enhanced mode along with a PATA drive while booting straight to the SATA.

Steve

 

[Ronald Rey]

Thanks everyone for the info ... much appreciated.

 

[Ronald Rey]

I was able to boot from a SATA drive while i had a PATA drive installed on
the following boards:

Albatron 865PE Pro (865PE)
Abit IC7-G (875P)
Soltek SL-86SPE-L (865PE)

it also works fine on my Gigabyte GA-8KNXP (875P)

that's without any boot manager programs, and without storing any boot
information on the PATA drive.

We use Intel based Gigabyte boards at work for our better P4 systems. As
long as they have the latest BIOS, then we have no trouble running the SATA
in enhanced mode along with a PATA drive while booting straight to the SATA.

Steve