Enabling SATA mode on SATA drives in XP

Y

Yousuf Khan

Looks like I'm currently using my SATA drives in IDE emulation mode
through the motherboard. The SATA drives appear under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers" section of Device Manager. All SATA drives appear to be
running in UDMA Mode 6 (ATA/133) at present. Question is will there be
any noticeable difference in performance if I switch them into SATA
mode? Second question, is it worth bothering under XP, when the drives
may fail to boot if any change is made?

Yousuf Khan
 
R

Rod Speed

Yousuf said:
Looks like I'm currently using my SATA drives in IDE emulation mode through the motherboard. The SATA drives appear
under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" section of Device Manager. All SATA drives appear to be running in UDMA Mode 6
(ATA/133) at present. Question is will there be any noticeable difference in performance if I switch them into SATA
mode?
Nope.

Second question, is it worth bothering under XP,
Nope.

when the drives may fail to boot if any change is made?

You can always change the mode back if that happens.
 
M

Mike Ruskai

Looks like I'm currently using my SATA drives in IDE emulation mode
through the motherboard. The SATA drives appear under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers" section of Device Manager. All SATA drives appear to be
running in UDMA Mode 6 (ATA/133) at present. Question is will there be
any noticeable difference in performance if I switch them into SATA
mode? Second question, is it worth bothering under XP, when the drives
may fail to boot if any change is made?

There will be no performance difference, and the OS *will* fail to boot.

Switching from IDE emulation to AHCI is a pain in Windows. The only real
reason to do it is to enable an eSATA port to work properly.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Mike said:
Switching from IDE emulation to AHCI is a pain in Windows. The only real
reason to do it is to enable an eSATA port to work properly.

You mean for hot plugging support?

Yousuf Khan
 
H

Hg

Looks like I'm currently using my SATA drives in IDE emulation mode
through the motherboard. The SATA drives appear under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers" section of Device Manager. All SATA drives appear to be
running in UDMA Mode 6 (ATA/133) at present. Question is will there be
any noticeable difference in performance if I switch them into SATA
mode? Second question, is it worth bothering under XP, when the drives
may fail to boot if any change is made?

Yousuf Khan


On a new system with XP pro installed, my SATA drives were unbelievably slow
in IDE mode - a 1 gig file copy between 2 (real) hard drives took over a
minute, maybe 2. Also AHCI mode will allow NCQ to be turned on which speeds
up random file access and increases drive reliability (less drive head
movements).

AHCI mode is worth the effort to enable IMO, however you will need to either
install the AHCI drivers at XP installation time using F6 or slipstream the
AHCI drivers in an XP CD which is not exactly easy as pie.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Hg said:
On a new system with XP pro installed, my SATA drives were unbelievably slow
in IDE mode - a 1 gig file copy between 2 (real) hard drives took over a
minute, maybe 2. Also AHCI mode will allow NCQ to be turned on which speeds
up random file access and increases drive reliability (less drive head
movements).

AHCI mode is worth the effort to enable IMO, however you will need to either
install the AHCI drivers at XP installation time using F6 or slipstream the
AHCI drivers in an XP CD which is not exactly easy as pie.

So you're suggesting it is worth the effort for a new installation, but
what about for an existing installation?

Yousuf Khan
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf said:
Looks like I'm currently using my SATA drives in IDE emulation mode
through the motherboard. The SATA drives appear under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers" section of Device Manager. All SATA drives appear to be
running in UDMA Mode 6 (ATA/133) at present. Question is will there be
any noticeable difference in performance if I switch them into SATA
mode? Second question, is it worth bothering under XP, when the drives
may fail to boot if any change is made?


Another question, if I were to enable the AHCI/SATA drivers, I'd have to
go into my BIOS and turn on Nvidia RAID support, but disable each
individual drive as belonging to a RAID set, right?

Yousuf Khan
 
A

Arno

So you're suggesting it is worth the effort for a new installation, but
what about for an existing installation?

I have XP running with AHCI. I am not sure what I did, but I think
I just installed the controller drivers while still in IDE mode.
If I remember correctly, then installing with IDE and then upgrading
to AHCI is possible.

Arno
 
M

me/2

On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:13:55 -0500, Yousuf Khan

:>Hg wrote:
:>> On a new system with XP pro installed, my SATA drives were unbelievably slow
:>> in IDE mode - a 1 gig file copy between 2 (real) hard drives took over a
:>> minute, maybe 2. Also AHCI mode will allow NCQ to be turned on which speeds
:>> up random file access and increases drive reliability (less drive head
:>> movements).
:>>
:>> AHCI mode is worth the effort to enable IMO, however you will need to either
:>> install the AHCI drivers at XP installation time using F6 or slipstream the
:>> AHCI drivers in an XP CD which is not exactly easy as pie.
:>
:>So you're suggesting it is worth the effort for a new installation, but
:>what about for an existing installation?
:>
:> Yousuf Khan

Thsi worked for me a few weeks ago on an existing XP installation
without having to reinstall the o/s.

http://blog.mytwocents.it/?p=11

me/2
 
M

Mike Ruskai

You mean for hot plugging support?

More like hot unplugging. You will be able to attach a drive easily enough,
but Windows will not give you the means to safely remove it without data loss.
 
A

Abhinav Nishant

Looks like I'm currently using my SATA drives in IDE emulation mode
Does this means that a SATA disk under XP is no different from a PATA disk?
Are there any significant increase in the transfer rates? SATA claims a
pretty high rates, so will this be apperent in a XP based system?
What operating system can provide the claimed speed? Changing the
motherboard settings to accomodate SATA as it is and reinstalling a copy of
"Vista" will help?

Regards,
Abhinav
 
R

Rod Speed

Abhinav Nishant wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Does this means that a SATA disk under XP is no different from a PATA disk?

Performance wise, yes.
Are there any significant increase in the transfer rates?

Nope, thats determined by the physical detail of the drive, sectors per track and rotation rate.
SATA claims a pretty high rates,

That is just the rate over the cable, thats always much higher than
what the drive can physically do. What the drive can physically do
is determined by the rate the sectors move under the heads, and
so the rotation rate and sectors per track.
so will this be apperent in a XP based system?

It isnt seen on any system.
What operating system can provide the claimed speed?

None, zero, nada, ziltch.
Changing the motherboard settings to accomodate SATA as it is and reinstalling a copy of "Vista" will help?

Nope.
 
A

Abhinav Nishant

That is just the rate over the cable, thats always much higher than
what the drive can physically do. What the drive can physically do
is determined by the rate the sectors move under the heads, and
so the rotation rate and sectors per track.

Any advantage of using a SATA disk?
 
R

Rod Speed

Abhinav Nishant wrote
Any advantage of using a SATA disk?

Likely to be more useful in a future system. Plenty of current
motherboards only have a couple of PATA ports now and
you normally want to use those for DVD drives.
 

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