Loading WinXP to Sata HHD with Sata DVD/RW dirve all connected to on board MOBO Sata Controllers

D

Docster

I am planning to rebuild my old computer with a new MOBO, Pwr Sply Unit,
Sata HDDs and Sata DVD/RW drives.
My concern is based on a lack of understanding about how sata works.
This new board will not have a floppy controller so there will be not floppy
drive.
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers on a
floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are native to
the board.
I am concerned about whether the sata DVD/RW drives will spin up and handled
my WinXP installation disk?
The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.
Has any one experienced this, or know if the boards bios will active
anything connected to a native connection on the board. I am thinking the
problem is not so much about drivers for windowsXP or drivers in windowsXP
its more about the mobo and bios spinning up the drives.
In a real dilemma and would appreciate any expert opinions or thoughts.
 
A

Alias

I am planning to rebuild my old computer with a new MOBO, Pwr Sply Unit,
Sata HDDs and Sata DVD/RW drives.
My concern is based on a lack of understanding about how sata works.
This new board will not have a floppy controller so there will be not floppy
drive.
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers on a
floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are native to
the board.
I am concerned about whether the sata DVD/RW drives will spin up and handled
my WinXP installation disk?
The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.
Has any one experienced this, or know if the boards bios will active
anything connected to a native connection on the board. I am thinking the
problem is not so much about drivers for windowsXP or drivers in windowsXP
its more about the mobo and bios spinning up the drives.
In a real dilemma and would appreciate any expert opinions or thoughts.

No problem if you're installing XP SP2 or SP3 and may not be a problem
for SP1. No floppy needed and the install is the same as if it were PATA.
 
B

Bert Hyman

In "Docster"
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers
on a floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are
native to the board.

Maybe.

My Asus P5B-E motherboard has the SATA connectors on the
motherboard and SATA drives show up as IDE when XP's installed without
drivers (I don't have a floppy either).

I'm just guessing (more like hoping) that newer motherboards have native
SATA support in the hardware.
 
P

(PeteCresswell)

Per Docster:
In a real dilemma and would appreciate any expert opinions or thoughts.

This is not from an expert - quite the opposite, in fact.

But I would say that you should look into what it takes to enable
SATA hot-swaps.

I can't recall the details, but there is something about which
drivers are installed for the SATA controllers when XP is first
installed. If you miss the boat at install time, there are
workarounds but my impression was that it is well worth an hour
of Googling to get it straightened out at install time.

Why SATA hot swap? BC the up-and-coming replacement for USB hard
drive wrappers seems tb SATA hot-swap bays that take a naked
drive - kind of like toast in a toaster.
 
D

Docster

I am hoping for the same confirmation.
This new set up is going to cost a couple of bucks and I am not purchasing
the first piece until I sort it out. At 300 for a processor I don't want to
end up with a box of stuff I give one of my buddies.
I suspect you are on target, just wish I could get Intel to confirm.
All comments are thought provoking and helpful.


In "Docster"
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers
on a floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are
native to the board.

Maybe.

My Asus P5B-E motherboard has the SATA connectors on the
motherboard and SATA drives show up as IDE when XP's installed without
drivers (I don't have a floppy either).

I'm just guessing (more like hoping) that newer motherboards have native
SATA support in the hardware.
 
P

Paul

Docster said:
I am planning to rebuild my old computer with a new MOBO, Pwr Sply Unit,
Sata HDDs and Sata DVD/RW drives.
My concern is based on a lack of understanding about how sata works.
This new board will not have a floppy controller so there will be not floppy
drive.
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers on a
floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are native to
the board.
I am concerned about whether the sata DVD/RW drives will spin up and handled
my WinXP installation disk?
The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.
Has any one experienced this, or know if the boards bios will active
anything connected to a native connection on the board. I am thinking the
problem is not so much about drivers for windowsXP or drivers in windowsXP
its more about the mobo and bios spinning up the drives.
In a real dilemma and would appreciate any expert opinions or thoughts.

First of all, at the BIOS level, the BIOS has its own "driver" for the
SATA ports. It amounts to an Extended INT 0x13 support routine, for
whatever chip has the SATA ports. If the chipset supports RAID, and
the BIOS is put in RAID mode, then the BIOS reads the metadata area of
each hard drive, to identify where the RAID arrays are. Each storage
device at the BIOS level, should have its own BIOS code module providing
INT 0x13 disk reading services. That is how the BIOS cna handle booting.

Now, at one time, SATA optical support was miserable. Plextor used to keep
a compatibility page, where they tracked what chipsets couldn't work
with their new SATA optical drive. They were one of the first to have
a SATA optical drive. Things have improved since then. You
can't even access this page any more.

( http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA.htm dead-link )

That is separate from OS driver issues. Each OS has some built-in drivers,
and other drivers have to be added manually if not incorporated into the OS.
The driver required, is a function of the BIOS setting.

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/biosglossaryalpha_v14.pdf

Page 4 has three options for SATA connectors.

IDE
AHCI
RAID

IDE has drivers in all Windows from at least Win98 upwards. Some motherboards
include terminology like "Compatible" or "Native". "Compatible" enables only
four of six SATA connectors, uses IRQ 14 and 15, and is intended to look exactly
like a motherboard with two ribbon cables ten years ago. Switching to "Native"
mode IDE for the SATA ports, enables six of six connectors, moves the logic blocks
to PCI space (at a PCI BAR). "Native" mode may not be supported in Win98. It is
probably covered by WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or later. (If your motherboard
doesn't use Native or Compatible terminology, then by seeing how many
SATA ports are working, would hint at the mode used. If the motherboard
only has four SATA ports anyway, then the difference wouldn't matter
from a practical perspective.)

AHCI is newer. Like native mode IDE, it'll be in the PCI address space.
Win98 would have no drivers. WinXP SP3 has no drivers either. Windows 7
has a built-in driver (msahci) for that. AHCI supports hot plug, allowing a SATA
drive to be connected to a motherboard connector "hot". AHCI also supports
native command queuing, which allows hard drive commands to be completed
out of sequence. Such an option, allows the disk controller processor to
re-order the commands, for least head movement.

RAID is for arrays of disks. Windows 7 happens to have an "iastorv" module
in it, so may understand a RAID array without additional drivers. And in
some cases, the built-in driver is higher quality than the ones you can
later download from Intel. Many other OSes would require separate driver
install. WinXP would need you to press F6 and install an AHCI or RAID driver,
as they're not built into WinXP. If the computer has no floppy drive or
connector, you can "slipstream" the necessary drivers, with NLite.

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html

So one question would be, what happens when ACHI meets ATAPI (optical drive) ?
The AHCI spec claims to be command agnostic. But if you check the back page of
this spec, they even include a software suggestion to developers, to handle
an IDE CDROM bridged using an IDE to SATA bridge chip. It is up to the
BIOS to support the CDROM in AHCI mode, and up to the OS drivers to
support the CDROM once the OS is booted. So a driver liks "msahci" would
have to support the feature mentioned on the last page of this doc.

http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_3.pdf

*******

Well, that's all wonderful. So how should the end user deal with the computer ?

The issue for the end user, is "ease of installation", versus "functionality
later".

Setting the BIOS to IDE, virtually guarantees an installation without a
problem. If the BIOS was using Native mode IDE and enabling all six SATA
ports in PCI space, you'd want to be using a WinXP CD with at least SP1
or later Service Pack on it. If you had a WinXP Gold CD, you'd want
to slipstream in a Service Pack in that case.

If you ever expect to be using Intel RAID, and the motherboard supports
RAID (Southbridge name has the letter "R" on the end), then either an
AHCI or RAID driver is the thing you'd want from day one. That means more
work preparing for it, but better compatibility later, if for example,
you become rich enough to afford an SSD. Or decide to connect four
hard drives in a RAID array.

To do AHCI/RAID without a floppy drive, you can slipstream the six or seven
files needed, with NLite. You can tell you've got the right files, if
the file TXTSETUP.OEM is included in the file set. That's intended for
"F6" style installation. (Maybe a USB floppy drive would work, so you
don't have to slipstream, but I'm not really sure what makes or breaks
that. A USB floppy maps to A: or B:, as long as no legacy floppy interface
is enabled/supported on the motherboard. I don't know if WinXP only
accepts floppy drives at A: or B:, or is less picky. Maybe someone
else knows the answer to that. Some OSes have problems with using
USB, during boot or during installation. I haven't tested my USB
floppy on that yet.)

In summary, if I was lazy, and promised myself to reinstall the OS, if
the driver situation needs to be changed, I'd just use Compatible IDE.
That would be the least amount of work, no "press F6" or the like.

If I wanted some future proofing, I might select AHCI/RAID, prepare
the Intel drivers for installation, either use a USB floppy drive for F6,
or NLite slipstream to a new CD. I'd probably use NLite, and burn a
new CD with the results. Then, keeping that CD with the machine,
means I'm ready if I need to reinstall the whole OS at a later date.

And if a motherboard can't read from a SATA optical drive at this
point in time, I'd send it back to the retailer.

HTH,
Paul
 
D

Docster

Paul,
Thanks for all the good info. I will spend some time reading striving to
understand all you have provided and may be back with more questions.


Docster said:
I am planning to rebuild my old computer with a new MOBO, Pwr Sply Unit,
Sata HDDs and Sata DVD/RW drives.
My concern is based on a lack of understanding about how sata works.
This new board will not have a floppy controller so there will be not
floppy
drive.
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers on a
floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are native
to
the board.
I am concerned about whether the sata DVD/RW drives will spin up and
handled
my WinXP installation disk?
The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.
Has any one experienced this, or know if the boards bios will active
anything connected to a native connection on the board. I am thinking the
problem is not so much about drivers for windowsXP or drivers in windowsXP
its more about the mobo and bios spinning up the drives.
In a real dilemma and would appreciate any expert opinions or thoughts.

First of all, at the BIOS level, the BIOS has its own "driver" for the
SATA ports. It amounts to an Extended INT 0x13 support routine, for
whatever chip has the SATA ports. If the chipset supports RAID, and
the BIOS is put in RAID mode, then the BIOS reads the metadata area of
each hard drive, to identify where the RAID arrays are. Each storage
device at the BIOS level, should have its own BIOS code module providing
INT 0x13 disk reading services. That is how the BIOS cna handle booting.

Now, at one time, SATA optical support was miserable. Plextor used to keep
a compatibility page, where they tracked what chipsets couldn't work
with their new SATA optical drive. They were one of the first to have
a SATA optical drive. Things have improved since then. You
can't even access this page any more.

( http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA.htm dead-link )

That is separate from OS driver issues. Each OS has some built-in drivers,
and other drivers have to be added manually if not incorporated into the OS.
The driver required, is a function of the BIOS setting.

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/biosglossaryalpha_v14.pdf

Page 4 has three options for SATA connectors.

IDE
AHCI
RAID

IDE has drivers in all Windows from at least Win98 upwards. Some
motherboards
include terminology like "Compatible" or "Native". "Compatible" enables only
four of six SATA connectors, uses IRQ 14 and 15, and is intended to look
exactly
like a motherboard with two ribbon cables ten years ago. Switching to
"Native"
mode IDE for the SATA ports, enables six of six connectors, moves the logic
blocks
to PCI space (at a PCI BAR). "Native" mode may not be supported in Win98. It
is
probably covered by WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or later. (If your motherboard
doesn't use Native or Compatible terminology, then by seeing how many
SATA ports are working, would hint at the mode used. If the motherboard
only has four SATA ports anyway, then the difference wouldn't matter
from a practical perspective.)

AHCI is newer. Like native mode IDE, it'll be in the PCI address space.
Win98 would have no drivers. WinXP SP3 has no drivers either. Windows 7
has a built-in driver (msahci) for that. AHCI supports hot plug, allowing a
SATA
drive to be connected to a motherboard connector "hot". AHCI also supports
native command queuing, which allows hard drive commands to be completed
out of sequence. Such an option, allows the disk controller processor to
re-order the commands, for least head movement.

RAID is for arrays of disks. Windows 7 happens to have an "iastorv" module
in it, so may understand a RAID array without additional drivers. And in
some cases, the built-in driver is higher quality than the ones you can
later download from Intel. Many other OSes would require separate driver
install. WinXP would need you to press F6 and install an AHCI or RAID
driver,
as they're not built into WinXP. If the computer has no floppy drive or
connector, you can "slipstream" the necessary drivers, with NLite.

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html

So one question would be, what happens when ACHI meets ATAPI (optical drive)
?
The AHCI spec claims to be command agnostic. But if you check the back page
of
this spec, they even include a software suggestion to developers, to handle
an IDE CDROM bridged using an IDE to SATA bridge chip. It is up to the
BIOS to support the CDROM in AHCI mode, and up to the OS drivers to
support the CDROM once the OS is booted. So a driver liks "msahci" would
have to support the feature mentioned on the last page of this doc.

http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_3.pdf

*******

Well, that's all wonderful. So how should the end user deal with the
computer ?

The issue for the end user, is "ease of installation", versus "functionality
later".

Setting the BIOS to IDE, virtually guarantees an installation without a
problem. If the BIOS was using Native mode IDE and enabling all six SATA
ports in PCI space, you'd want to be using a WinXP CD with at least SP1
or later Service Pack on it. If you had a WinXP Gold CD, you'd want
to slipstream in a Service Pack in that case.

If you ever expect to be using Intel RAID, and the motherboard supports
RAID (Southbridge name has the letter "R" on the end), then either an
AHCI or RAID driver is the thing you'd want from day one. That means more
work preparing for it, but better compatibility later, if for example,
you become rich enough to afford an SSD. Or decide to connect four
hard drives in a RAID array.

To do AHCI/RAID without a floppy drive, you can slipstream the six or seven
files needed, with NLite. You can tell you've got the right files, if
the file TXTSETUP.OEM is included in the file set. That's intended for
"F6" style installation. (Maybe a USB floppy drive would work, so you
don't have to slipstream, but I'm not really sure what makes or breaks
that. A USB floppy maps to A: or B:, as long as no legacy floppy interface
is enabled/supported on the motherboard. I don't know if WinXP only
accepts floppy drives at A: or B:, or is less picky. Maybe someone
else knows the answer to that. Some OSes have problems with using
USB, during boot or during installation. I haven't tested my USB
floppy on that yet.)

In summary, if I was lazy, and promised myself to reinstall the OS, if
the driver situation needs to be changed, I'd just use Compatible IDE.
That would be the least amount of work, no "press F6" or the like.

If I wanted some future proofing, I might select AHCI/RAID, prepare
the Intel drivers for installation, either use a USB floppy drive for F6,
or NLite slipstream to a new CD. I'd probably use NLite, and burn a
new CD with the results. Then, keeping that CD with the machine,
means I'm ready if I need to reinstall the whole OS at a later date.

And if a motherboard can't read from a SATA optical drive at this
point in time, I'd send it back to the retailer.

HTH,
Paul
 
P

Paul in Houston TX

Docster said:
I am hoping for the same confirmation.
This new set up is going to cost a couple of bucks and I am not purchasing
the first piece until I sort it out. At 300 for a processor I don't want to
end up with a box of stuff I give one of my buddies.
I suspect you are on target, just wish I could get Intel to confirm.
All comments are thought provoking and helpful.


In "Docster"


Maybe.

My Asus P5B-E motherboard has the SATA connectors on the
motherboard and SATA drives show up as IDE when XP's installed without
drivers (I don't have a floppy either).

I'm just guessing (more like hoping) that newer motherboards have native
SATA support in the hardware.

If you are getting a new cpu, then why not go for the latest
mobo (1366) instead of an obsolete one (775)?
At least get a 1156.

Gigabyte has floppy and ps2.
Careful with ASUS, they may not have ps2.
Nvidia will work with CRT monitors.
ATI is locked at 60 hz and made for lcd only.
Almost no one incorporates parallel any more.
 
D

Don Phillipson

The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.

This seems an unusual anomaly. If Intel really does not post this
information on line, you will probably get a cogent reply if you mail
a letter (personally addressed to the CEO.)
 
D

Docster

Don,
Following Paul's leads it appears everything I was looking for is on the
Intel site, just not in a format I am accustomed to. My ignorance. I have
not done a build in a few years and Intel has changed the way they present
information. The last board I used you could actually view the specific BIOs
for the board, which made it possible to discern a lot of information on
your own. Having said that...............they don't make it easy.
Appreciate you looking in, all comments are motivating
James


The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.

This seems an unusual anomaly. If Intel really does not post this
information on line, you will probably get a cogent reply if you mail
a letter (personally addressed to the CEO.)
 
D

Docster

Paul,
I have down loaded nLite and read everything on the site. It appears that
after you slip stream you end up with an ISO file, which must be recorded
with a special app.
Do you or anyone else viewing the string have any suggestions about free ISO
burners.
To do one chore I don't want to purchase an expensive program if I don't
need to.............times are hard.
Suggestions about sound and reliable ISO burners will really be a big help.
James

Docster said:
I am planning to rebuild my old computer with a new MOBO, Pwr Sply Unit,
Sata HDDs and Sata DVD/RW drives.
My concern is based on a lack of understanding about how sata works.
This new board will not have a floppy controller so there will be not
floppy
drive.
All sata connectors are on board the mobo, no drop in cards.
I have seen questions posted where the advice was to put the drivers on a
floppy and press F6 when the computer asked for drivers.
I am wondering if this also applies where the sata contollers are native
to
the board.
I am concerned about whether the sata DVD/RW drives will spin up and
handled
my WinXP installation disk?
The board I am going to use is an Intel DP43BF.
I have not been able to get Intel to confirm that the drives will come to
live and start my installation without additional drivers.
Has any one experienced this, or know if the boards bios will active
anything connected to a native connection on the board. I am thinking the
problem is not so much about drivers for windowsXP or drivers in windowsXP
its more about the mobo and bios spinning up the drives.
In a real dilemma and would appreciate any expert opinions or thoughts.

First of all, at the BIOS level, the BIOS has its own "driver" for the
SATA ports. It amounts to an Extended INT 0x13 support routine, for
whatever chip has the SATA ports. If the chipset supports RAID, and
the BIOS is put in RAID mode, then the BIOS reads the metadata area of
each hard drive, to identify where the RAID arrays are. Each storage
device at the BIOS level, should have its own BIOS code module providing
INT 0x13 disk reading services. That is how the BIOS cna handle booting.

Now, at one time, SATA optical support was miserable. Plextor used to keep
a compatibility page, where they tracked what chipsets couldn't work
with their new SATA optical drive. They were one of the first to have
a SATA optical drive. Things have improved since then. You
can't even access this page any more.

( http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA.htm dead-link )

That is separate from OS driver issues. Each OS has some built-in drivers,
and other drivers have to be added manually if not incorporated into the OS.
The driver required, is a function of the BIOS setting.

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/biosglossaryalpha_v14.pdf

Page 4 has three options for SATA connectors.

IDE
AHCI
RAID

IDE has drivers in all Windows from at least Win98 upwards. Some
motherboards
include terminology like "Compatible" or "Native". "Compatible" enables only
four of six SATA connectors, uses IRQ 14 and 15, and is intended to look
exactly
like a motherboard with two ribbon cables ten years ago. Switching to
"Native"
mode IDE for the SATA ports, enables six of six connectors, moves the logic
blocks
to PCI space (at a PCI BAR). "Native" mode may not be supported in Win98. It
is
probably covered by WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or later. (If your motherboard
doesn't use Native or Compatible terminology, then by seeing how many
SATA ports are working, would hint at the mode used. If the motherboard
only has four SATA ports anyway, then the difference wouldn't matter
from a practical perspective.)

AHCI is newer. Like native mode IDE, it'll be in the PCI address space.
Win98 would have no drivers. WinXP SP3 has no drivers either. Windows 7
has a built-in driver (msahci) for that. AHCI supports hot plug, allowing a
SATA
drive to be connected to a motherboard connector "hot". AHCI also supports
native command queuing, which allows hard drive commands to be completed
out of sequence. Such an option, allows the disk controller processor to
re-order the commands, for least head movement.

RAID is for arrays of disks. Windows 7 happens to have an "iastorv" module
in it, so may understand a RAID array without additional drivers. And in
some cases, the built-in driver is higher quality than the ones you can
later download from Intel. Many other OSes would require separate driver
install. WinXP would need you to press F6 and install an AHCI or RAID
driver,
as they're not built into WinXP. If the computer has no floppy drive or
connector, you can "slipstream" the necessary drivers, with NLite.

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html

So one question would be, what happens when ACHI meets ATAPI (optical drive)
?
The AHCI spec claims to be command agnostic. But if you check the back page
of
this spec, they even include a software suggestion to developers, to handle
an IDE CDROM bridged using an IDE to SATA bridge chip. It is up to the
BIOS to support the CDROM in AHCI mode, and up to the OS drivers to
support the CDROM once the OS is booted. So a driver liks "msahci" would
have to support the feature mentioned on the last page of this doc.

http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_3.pdf

*******

Well, that's all wonderful. So how should the end user deal with the
computer ?

The issue for the end user, is "ease of installation", versus "functionality
later".

Setting the BIOS to IDE, virtually guarantees an installation without a
problem. If the BIOS was using Native mode IDE and enabling all six SATA
ports in PCI space, you'd want to be using a WinXP CD with at least SP1
or later Service Pack on it. If you had a WinXP Gold CD, you'd want
to slipstream in a Service Pack in that case.

If you ever expect to be using Intel RAID, and the motherboard supports
RAID (Southbridge name has the letter "R" on the end), then either an
AHCI or RAID driver is the thing you'd want from day one. That means more
work preparing for it, but better compatibility later, if for example,
you become rich enough to afford an SSD. Or decide to connect four
hard drives in a RAID array.

To do AHCI/RAID without a floppy drive, you can slipstream the six or seven
files needed, with NLite. You can tell you've got the right files, if
the file TXTSETUP.OEM is included in the file set. That's intended for
"F6" style installation. (Maybe a USB floppy drive would work, so you
don't have to slipstream, but I'm not really sure what makes or breaks
that. A USB floppy maps to A: or B:, as long as no legacy floppy interface
is enabled/supported on the motherboard. I don't know if WinXP only
accepts floppy drives at A: or B:, or is less picky. Maybe someone
else knows the answer to that. Some OSes have problems with using
USB, during boot or during installation. I haven't tested my USB
floppy on that yet.)

In summary, if I was lazy, and promised myself to reinstall the OS, if
the driver situation needs to be changed, I'd just use Compatible IDE.
That would be the least amount of work, no "press F6" or the like.

If I wanted some future proofing, I might select AHCI/RAID, prepare
the Intel drivers for installation, either use a USB floppy drive for F6,
or NLite slipstream to a new CD. I'd probably use NLite, and burn a
new CD with the results. Then, keeping that CD with the machine,
means I'm ready if I need to reinstall the whole OS at a later date.

And if a motherboard can't read from a SATA optical drive at this
point in time, I'd send it back to the retailer.

HTH,
Paul
 
J

John Dulak

Paul,
I have down loaded nLite and read everything on the site. It appears that
after you slip stream you end up with an ISO file, which must be recorded
with a special app.
Do you or anyone else viewing the string have any suggestions about free ISO
burners.
To do one chore I don't want to purchase an expensive program if I don't
need to.............times are hard.
Suggestions about sound and reliable ISO burners will really be a big help.
James



First of all, at the BIOS level, the BIOS has its own "driver" for the
SATA ports. It amounts to an Extended INT 0x13 support routine, for
whatever chip has the SATA ports. If the chipset supports RAID, and
the BIOS is put in RAID mode, then the BIOS reads the metadata area of
each hard drive, to identify where the RAID arrays are. Each storage
device at the BIOS level, should have its own BIOS code module providing
INT 0x13 disk reading services. That is how the BIOS cna handle booting.

Now, at one time, SATA optical support was miserable. Plextor used to keep
a compatibility page, where they tracked what chipsets couldn't work
with their new SATA optical drive. They were one of the first to have
a SATA optical drive. Things have improved since then. You
can't even access this page any more.

( http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA.htm dead-link )

That is separate from OS driver issues. Each OS has some built-in drivers,
and other drivers have to be added manually if not incorporated into the OS.
The driver required, is a function of the BIOS setting.

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/biosglossaryalpha_v14.pdf

Page 4 has three options for SATA connectors.

IDE
AHCI
RAID

IDE has drivers in all Windows from at least Win98 upwards. Some
motherboards
include terminology like "Compatible" or "Native". "Compatible" enables only
four of six SATA connectors, uses IRQ 14 and 15, and is intended to look
exactly
like a motherboard with two ribbon cables ten years ago. Switching to
"Native"
mode IDE for the SATA ports, enables six of six connectors, moves the logic
blocks
to PCI space (at a PCI BAR). "Native" mode may not be supported in Win98. It
is
probably covered by WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or later. (If your motherboard
doesn't use Native or Compatible terminology, then by seeing how many
SATA ports are working, would hint at the mode used. If the motherboard
only has four SATA ports anyway, then the difference wouldn't matter
from a practical perspective.)

AHCI is newer. Like native mode IDE, it'll be in the PCI address space.
Win98 would have no drivers. WinXP SP3 has no drivers either. Windows 7
has a built-in driver (msahci) for that. AHCI supports hot plug, allowing a
SATA
drive to be connected to a motherboard connector "hot". AHCI also supports
native command queuing, which allows hard drive commands to be completed
out of sequence. Such an option, allows the disk controller processor to
re-order the commands, for least head movement.

RAID is for arrays of disks. Windows 7 happens to have an "iastorv" module
in it, so may understand a RAID array without additional drivers. And in
some cases, the built-in driver is higher quality than the ones you can
later download from Intel. Many other OSes would require separate driver
install. WinXP would need you to press F6 and install an AHCI or RAID
driver,
as they're not built into WinXP. If the computer has no floppy drive or
connector, you can "slipstream" the necessary drivers, with NLite.

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html

So one question would be, what happens when ACHI meets ATAPI (optical drive)
?
The AHCI spec claims to be command agnostic. But if you check the back page
of
this spec, they even include a software suggestion to developers, to handle
an IDE CDROM bridged using an IDE to SATA bridge chip. It is up to the
BIOS to support the CDROM in AHCI mode, and up to the OS drivers to
support the CDROM once the OS is booted. So a driver liks "msahci" would
have to support the feature mentioned on the last page of this doc.

http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_3.pdf

*******

Well, that's all wonderful. So how should the end user deal with the
computer ?

The issue for the end user, is "ease of installation", versus "functionality
later".

Setting the BIOS to IDE, virtually guarantees an installation without a
problem. If the BIOS was using Native mode IDE and enabling all six SATA
ports in PCI space, you'd want to be using a WinXP CD with at least SP1
or later Service Pack on it. If you had a WinXP Gold CD, you'd want
to slipstream in a Service Pack in that case.

If you ever expect to be using Intel RAID, and the motherboard supports
RAID (Southbridge name has the letter "R" on the end), then either an
AHCI or RAID driver is the thing you'd want from day one. That means more
work preparing for it, but better compatibility later, if for example,
you become rich enough to afford an SSD. Or decide to connect four
hard drives in a RAID array.

To do AHCI/RAID without a floppy drive, you can slipstream the six or seven
files needed, with NLite. You can tell you've got the right files, if
the file TXTSETUP.OEM is included in the file set. That's intended for
"F6" style installation. (Maybe a USB floppy drive would work, so you
don't have to slipstream, but I'm not really sure what makes or breaks
that. A USB floppy maps to A: or B:, as long as no legacy floppy interface
is enabled/supported on the motherboard. I don't know if WinXP only
accepts floppy drives at A: or B:, or is less picky. Maybe someone
else knows the answer to that. Some OSes have problems with using
USB, during boot or during installation. I haven't tested my USB
floppy on that yet.)

In summary, if I was lazy, and promised myself to reinstall the OS, if
the driver situation needs to be changed, I'd just use Compatible IDE.
That would be the least amount of work, no "press F6" or the like.

If I wanted some future proofing, I might select AHCI/RAID, prepare
the Intel drivers for installation, either use a USB floppy drive for F6,
or NLite slipstream to a new CD. I'd probably use NLite, and burn a
new CD with the results. Then, keeping that CD with the machine,
means I'm ready if I need to reinstall the whole OS at a later date.

And if a motherboard can't read from a SATA optical drive at this
point in time, I'd send it back to the retailer.

HTH,
Paul

Paul:

Try "Burncdcc" from Terrabyte:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm

This is a very simple minded windows program that can only do one
thing - Burn a CD or DVD from an ISO file. There is not even an
install program. You just download the .ZIP file, unpack it someplace
convenient place and run the .EXE file. It is often recomended by
sites that have LINUX image files for download.

HTH & GL

John

--
\\\||///
------------------o000----(o)(o)----000o----------------
----------------------------()--------------------------
'' Madness takes its toll - Please have exact change. ''

John Dulak - 40.4888ºN,79.899ºW - http://tinyurl.com/2qs6o6
 
P

Paul

Docster said:
Paul,
I have down loaded nLite and read everything on the site. It appears that
after you slip stream you end up with an ISO file, which must be recorded
with a special app.
Do you or anyone else viewing the string have any suggestions about free ISO
burners.
To do one chore I don't want to purchase an expensive program if I don't
need to.............times are hard.
Suggestions about sound and reliable ISO burners will really be a big help.
James

Imgburn is very nice. I have an older version, without adware.
It is supposed to do ISO9660. (I use Nero for ISO9660, which is
commercial unless you get it bundled with a CD/DVD burner. I've bought
two burners that came with "lite" versions of Nero. OEM burners
don't typically advertise what is bundled with them for
software, so it's not that easy to shop for a copy that
way. I use Imgburn for doing double sided DVD-9's.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imgburn

CDBurnerXP is another one, but I don't know anything about this one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdburnerxp

If you have a Linux system handy, K3B isn't a bad burning
application. It typically comes in earlier versions of
Knoppix, or can be installed via Package Manager on
another distro. If your distro didn't have KDE, it
might be a fair sized download, to get the whole
environment. I use K3B, when I need to burn a CD sized
image on a DVD, and Nero won't let me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K3b

Paul
 
J

Jim

cdburnerxp - google for .



Paul,
I have down loaded nLite and read everything on the site. It appears that
after you slip stream you end up with an ISO file, which must be recorded
with a special app.
Do you or anyone else viewing the string have any suggestions about free ISO
burners.
To do one chore I don't want to purchase an expensive program if I don't
need to.............times are hard.
Suggestions about sound and reliable ISO burners will really be a big help.
James



First of all, at the BIOS level, the BIOS has its own "driver" for the
SATA ports. It amounts to an Extended INT 0x13 support routine, for
whatever chip has the SATA ports. If the chipset supports RAID, and
the BIOS is put in RAID mode, then the BIOS reads the metadata area of
each hard drive, to identify where the RAID arrays are. Each storage
device at the BIOS level, should have its own BIOS code module providing
INT 0x13 disk reading services. That is how the BIOS cna handle booting.

Now, at one time, SATA optical support was miserable. Plextor used to keep
a compatibility page, where they tracked what chipsets couldn't work
with their new SATA optical drive. They were one of the first to have
a SATA optical drive. Things have improved since then. You
can't even access this page any more.

( http://www.plextor.com/english/support/media_712SA.htm dead-link )

That is separate from OS driver issues. Each OS has some built-in drivers,
and other drivers have to be added manually if not incorporated into the OS.
The driver required, is a function of the BIOS setting.

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/biosglossaryalpha_v14.pdf

Page 4 has three options for SATA connectors.

IDE
AHCI
RAID

IDE has drivers in all Windows from at least Win98 upwards. Some
motherboards
include terminology like "Compatible" or "Native". "Compatible" enables only
four of six SATA connectors, uses IRQ 14 and 15, and is intended to look
exactly
like a motherboard with two ribbon cables ten years ago. Switching to
"Native"
mode IDE for the SATA ports, enables six of six connectors, moves the logic
blocks
to PCI space (at a PCI BAR). "Native" mode may not be supported in Win98. It
is
probably covered by WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or later. (If your motherboard
doesn't use Native or Compatible terminology, then by seeing how many
SATA ports are working, would hint at the mode used. If the motherboard
only has four SATA ports anyway, then the difference wouldn't matter
from a practical perspective.)

AHCI is newer. Like native mode IDE, it'll be in the PCI address space.
Win98 would have no drivers. WinXP SP3 has no drivers either. Windows 7
has a built-in driver (msahci) for that. AHCI supports hot plug, allowing a
SATA
drive to be connected to a motherboard connector "hot". AHCI also supports
native command queuing, which allows hard drive commands to be completed
out of sequence. Such an option, allows the disk controller processor to
re-order the commands, for least head movement.

RAID is for arrays of disks. Windows 7 happens to have an "iastorv" module
in it, so may understand a RAID array without additional drivers. And in
some cases, the built-in driver is higher quality than the ones you can
later download from Intel. Many other OSes would require separate driver
install. WinXP would need you to press F6 and install an AHCI or RAID
driver,
as they're not built into WinXP. If the computer has no floppy drive or
connector, you can "slipstream" the necessary drivers, with NLite.

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html

So one question would be, what happens when ACHI meets ATAPI (optical drive)
?
The AHCI spec claims to be command agnostic. But if you check the back page
of
this spec, they even include a software suggestion to developers, to handle
an IDE CDROM bridged using an IDE to SATA bridge chip. It is up to the
BIOS to support the CDROM in AHCI mode, and up to the OS drivers to
support the CDROM once the OS is booted. So a driver liks "msahci" would
have to support the feature mentioned on the last page of this doc.

http://download.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_3.pdf

*******

Well, that's all wonderful. So how should the end user deal with the
computer ?

The issue for the end user, is "ease of installation", versus "functionality
later".

Setting the BIOS to IDE, virtually guarantees an installation without a
problem. If the BIOS was using Native mode IDE and enabling all six SATA
ports in PCI space, you'd want to be using a WinXP CD with at least SP1
or later Service Pack on it. If you had a WinXP Gold CD, you'd want
to slipstream in a Service Pack in that case.

If you ever expect to be using Intel RAID, and the motherboard supports
RAID (Southbridge name has the letter "R" on the end), then either an
AHCI or RAID driver is the thing you'd want from day one. That means more
work preparing for it, but better compatibility later, if for example,
you become rich enough to afford an SSD. Or decide to connect four
hard drives in a RAID array.

To do AHCI/RAID without a floppy drive, you can slipstream the six or seven
files needed, with NLite. You can tell you've got the right files, if
the file TXTSETUP.OEM is included in the file set. That's intended for
"F6" style installation. (Maybe a USB floppy drive would work, so you
don't have to slipstream, but I'm not really sure what makes or breaks
that. A USB floppy maps to A: or B:, as long as no legacy floppy interface
is enabled/supported on the motherboard. I don't know if WinXP only
accepts floppy drives at A: or B:, or is less picky. Maybe someone
else knows the answer to that. Some OSes have problems with using
USB, during boot or during installation. I haven't tested my USB
floppy on that yet.)

In summary, if I was lazy, and promised myself to reinstall the OS, if
the driver situation needs to be changed, I'd just use Compatible IDE.
That would be the least amount of work, no "press F6" or the like.

If I wanted some future proofing, I might select AHCI/RAID, prepare
the Intel drivers for installation, either use a USB floppy drive for F6,
or NLite slipstream to a new CD. I'd probably use NLite, and burn a
new CD with the results. Then, keeping that CD with the machine,
means I'm ready if I need to reinstall the whole OS at a later date.

And if a motherboard can't read from a SATA optical drive at this
point in time, I'd send it back to the retailer.

HTH,
Paul
 

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