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