IDE drives as ATA in System Properties

[Diamontina Cocktail]

I don't normally use ATA as anything other than backup purely because C
drive has always been an IDE on this machine and I am not really wanting to
muck about with that for it. After all it isn't an expensive motherboard so
I am waiting till later this year before I replace it.

Anyway, in the meantime, I needed more backup space so put an ATA in as a
backup drive only and what do you know, the minute it does, the IDE drives
go haywire, wanting to be installed all the time AS ATA drives. I got sick
of this, disconnected the ATA drive (the only 1) and then turned ATA off in
BIOS but still the damned IDE drives were playing up. I attempted to make
them show up as normal IDE drives by reinstalling the drivers but it only
resulted in both drives not being available to the system and Vista refusing
to boot. So I did a restore from image backup to a day ago and still without
the ATA drive attached and ATA being disabled in bios, when it came back to
Windows, it shows the IDE drives as their model name and "ATA device" when
they are IDE.

So, does anyone have any idea how to make the drives KNOW that they are IDE
again please? Thanks.

 

[John E]

I don't normally use ATA as anything other than backup purely because C
drive has always been an IDE on this machine and I am not really wanting to
muck about with that for it. After all it isn't an expensive motherboard so
I am waiting till later this year before I replace it.

Anyway, in the meantime, I needed more backup space so put an ATA in as a
backup drive only and what do you know, the minute it does, the IDE drives
go haywire, wanting to be installed all the time AS ATA drives. I got sick
of this, disconnected the ATA drive (the only 1) and then turned ATA off
in BIOS but still the damned IDE drives were playing up. I attempted to
make them show up as normal IDE drives by reinstalling the drivers but it
only resulted in both drives not being available to the system and Vista
refusing to boot. So I did a restore from image backup to a day ago and
still without the ATA drive attached and ATA being disabled in bios, when
it came back to Windows, it shows the IDE drives as their model name and
"ATA device" when they are IDE.

So, does anyone have any idea how to make the drives KNOW that they are
IDE again please? Thanks.

http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/pcinfo/hardware/atafaq/atafq2.htm#ss2.2
"2.2 IDE and ATA
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics--or numerous other interpretations) and
ATA (AT Attachment) are one and the same thing: a disk drive implementation
designed to integrate the controller onto the drive itself, thereby reducing
interface costs, and making firmware implementations easier. This low
cost/easy integration created a boom in the disk drive industry, as PC
integrators readily ate up the low-cost alternative. Since the late 80's,
ATA (as it is properly called) has become the drive of choice for the cost
inhibited buyer."

Maybe you shouldn't disable ATA in the BIOS.



John.

 

[JW]

ATA can mean either Serial ATA(SATA) or Parallel ATA(PATA)also called IDE.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/pcinfo/hardware/atafaq/atafq2.htm#ss2.2
"2.2 IDE and ATA
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics--or numerous other interpretations) and
ATA (AT Attachment) are one and the same thing: a disk drive
implementation designed to integrate the controller onto the drive itself,
thereby reducing interface costs, and making firmware implementations
easier. This low cost/easy integration created a boom in the disk drive
industry, as PC integrators readily ate up the low-cost alternative. Since
the late 80's, ATA (as it is properly called) has become the drive of
choice for the cost inhibited buyer."

Maybe you shouldn't disable ATA in the BIOS.

Thanks for that. I did disable SATA in Bios only to see what happens to the
drives. Anyway that explains it.

Interesting footnote - the ACTUALLY SATA drive on the system is now working
properly whereas it wouldn't work reliably until this point. For reasons
unknown it would want to be installed every time I reboot. I tried all sorts
of things to no avail, including trying to get it to search "C" drive for a
driver. It didn't find one. Finally, I told it to search in system32 and
wonder of wonders, not only did it install properly, it stuck, this time.

Dunno what that was all about but was seriously considering a fresh install.
At least I don't have to, now.

 

[John E]

Thanks for that. I did disable SATA in Bios only to see what happens to
the drives. Anyway that explains it.

Interesting footnote - the ACTUALLY SATA drive on the system is now
working properly whereas it wouldn't work reliably until this point. For
reasons unknown it would want to be installed every time I reboot. I tried
all sorts of things to no avail, including trying to get it to search "C"
drive for a driver. It didn't find one. Finally, I told it to search in
system32 and wonder of wonders, not only did it install properly, it
stuck, this time.

Dunno what that was all about but was seriously considering a fresh
install. At least I don't have to, now.

Thanks for the reply. I have found setting up SATA in the BIOS is extremely
confusing (at least on my Asus Motherboard). I usually end up trying various
combinations of settings, to see which one works.

John.

 

[Diamontina Cocktail]

Thanks for the reply. I have found setting up SATA in the BIOS is
extremely confusing (at least on my Asus Motherboard). I usually end up
trying various combinations of settings, to see which one works.

John.

Really? I used to be an ASUS devotee until about 2004 when they really
brought out a dud motherboard and it cramped my income. I changed to
Gigabyte and decided to stick with it until ASUS got their act into gear and
didn't actually ever go back. The Gigabyte BIOS just gives you on or off for
SATA and also RAID or IDE setting for it and that is about it on the
motherboards I have used from them.