P4C800E Deluxe First Time BIOS Setup

[Peter]

I just turned my PC on for the first time. P4C800E Deluxe. 1 SATA hard
drive (more later). 1 CD/DVD drive. 1 Floppy. 4 USB Devices (flash card
readers). I flashed the BIOS to the latest version. No problem. I have
some questions about a few things I saw in the BIOS setup:

1. The CD/DVD drive was listed as Primary IDE Master. The hard drive was
listed as the Third IDE Master. Shouldn't the hard drive be Primary and
shouldn't the CD/DVD come after it (secondary or third)? Why did it
happen this way? Is it OK to keep it this way? If not, how do I change
it?

2. 32 bit data transfer was Disabled for the hard drive. It's a Western
Digital WD740GD which I *thought* could support anything/everything.
Should I enable 32 bit data transfer in the BIOS?

3. What's the difference between the Supervisor Password and a User
Password? What does one control and what does the other control?

4. This is somewhat of an OS question but I think it may be related to my
question #1 above. When I got around to installing WinXP Pro SP1, I
noticed that it automatically made my four USB devices drives C, D, E & F.
The CD/DVD drive got G. The hard drive got H.

As I asked in #1 above, shouldn't the hard drive come first (C), followed
by the CD/DVD, followed by the USB devices. Is there something about my
hardware of BIOS setup that caused it to happen this way? If so, what
should I change to get a more normal configuration?

Peter

 

[Anon]

1. The order of Intel SATA is third IDE, SATA 1 Primary, SATA 2 Secondary.
2. Actual transfers to the disk are always done 16 bits at a time, but
enabling this option will cause a small performance improvement on the
transfer from the bus to the processor, if your disk supports this, enable
it for a performance increase. Disable it if you encounter any difficulty or
if your disk doesn't support it.
3. I never use passwords, my computer is my bedroom.
4. I had the same problem on my first OS install (2 weeks ago). I had to
disable all other storage devices in the bios and reinstall the OS to get it
to assign my boot drive as the C: drive. Windows XP will allow you to change
all drive letters except the boot drive. Better do the reinstall before you
go any further.

Al

 

[Peter]

No problem disabling the four USB devices before I do a re-install of the
OS but how can I disable the CD/DVD drive? Without it I can not install
Windows.

Peter

 

[Anon]

The CD drive is ok to leave enabled. Win XP will never asign c: to the CD.

Al