SATA mobo: will it work w/ ATA hard drives?

[riprap1951]

Hello, All.
Am thinking about upgrading my motherboard, and have a basic
compatibility question...My existing hard drives (2) work fine, and are
set up standard ATA. I was looking at an Abit KV7-V Socket A board
which, according to the specs, is a "native SATA" setup. My question
is: Are PATA & SATA hd's two entirely-different animals? Will my
existing hd's even function w/ the Abit board? I've got a total of
120GB of storage w/ the 2 existing drives and they work fine, so am not
even remotely-interested in going out and buying another hd. In other
words, is the SATA characteristic something "built into" the hard
drives--or the board-and-cables?
Thanks much for your time & attention to detail [

terry b.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

SATA is Serial ATA. It uses a different, smaller interface. If you want to
use the older ATA (IDE) drives, look for a motherboard with IDE/ATA/PATA
interfaces that also have SATA/Serial ATA.

BTW: ABIT is in "financial" difficulties (aka almost bankrupt!) Stay away
from them until they become more
stable!!!!

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Good questions, all.

What you refer to as "standard ATA" is probably the familiar parallel ATA connection that hard disks have been using for years. The essential difference between a parallel ATA (PATA) connection and a serial ATA (SATA) is the data cable used to send information between the hard disk and the motherboard.

PATA uses a wide, 80 wire cable, known as a ribbon cable. SATA uses a much thinner cable that looks more like a normal wire. Ribbon cables are unwieldy and contribute to poor air circulation inside the computer case. SATA cables lack both issues, and SATA has some technological advantages over PATA as well (high-speed data transfer, hot swapping, etc.).

Consequently, SATA hard disks are the future. That doesn't mean that PATA hard disks are disappearing any time soon, since untold millions of computers have that kind of connector.

If a motherboard has native SATA support, that means it comes equipped with the connectors needed for SATA drives. You can still use PATA drives with such a motherboard, but you'll need to purchase and install an IDE-to-serial ATA converter. Frankly, your money would be better spent on a serial ATA hard disk.

Ted Zieglar

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Yves: Thanks for the tip about ABIT.

Ted Zieglar

SATA is Serial ATA. It uses a different, smaller interface. If you want to
use the older ATA (IDE) drives, look for a motherboard with IDE/ATA/PATA
interfaces that also have SATA/Serial ATA.

BTW: ABIT is in "financial" difficulties (aka almost bankrupt!) Stay away
from them until they become more
stable!!!!

Hello, All.
Am thinking about upgrading my motherboard, and have a basic
compatibility question...My existing hard drives (2) work fine, and are
set up standard ATA. I was looking at an Abit KV7-V Socket A board
which, according to the specs, is a "native SATA" setup. My question
is: Are PATA & SATA hd's two entirely-different animals? Will my
existing hd's even function w/ the Abit board? I've got a total of
120GB of storage w/ the 2 existing drives and they work fine, so am not
even remotely-interested in going out and buying another hd. In other
words, is the SATA characteristic something "built into" the hard
drives--or the board-and-cables?
Thanks much for your time & attention to detail [

terry b.

 

[Chris Priede]

Hi,

I was looking at an Abit KV7-V Socket A board
which, according to the specs, is a "native SATA" setup.

According to the specs (
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=230 ) it
also has two parallel ATA (UDMA IDE) connectors, so you should be fine.

Are PATA & SATA hd's two entirely-different animals?
Yes.

Will my existing hd's even function w/ the Abit board?

Because it also has parallel ATA interfaces, yes. If it truly was SATA
only, then the answer would be no.

Boards that have both will continue to be the norm for quite a while. Note
that your optical (CD and DVD) drives have to be connected somehow as well
and the first SATA models of those are just now appearing on the market...

Is the SATA characteristic something "built into" the
hard drives--or the board-and-cables?

It's completely different connections and cables, yes.

 

[riprap1951]

Hello Yves, Chris et al,
Thanks much for the info. In other words, if the drive says it's
"native SATA," make sure it also states that it's got PATA connections
as well...AND thanks for the KV7-V link, and the sidebar on Abit's
balance sheet; I don't ignore things like that....
Have an excellent evening!

terry b.

 

[NobodyMan]

Hello, All.
Am thinking about upgrading my motherboard, and have a basic
compatibility question...My existing hard drives (2) work fine, and are
set up standard ATA. I was looking at an Abit KV7-V Socket A board
which, according to the specs, is a "native SATA" setup. My question
is: Are PATA & SATA hd's two entirely-different animals? Will my
existing hd's even function w/ the Abit board? I've got a total of
120GB of storage w/ the 2 existing drives and they work fine, so am not
even remotely-interested in going out and buying another hd. In other
words, is the SATA characteristic something "built into" the hard
drives--or the board-and-cables?
Thanks much for your time & attention to detail [

terry b.

Ask elsewhere. Your question has absolutely nothing to do with XP and
hardware.

 

[tjoy]

If your new mobo doesn't have any PATa ports (I would be surprised if it
didn't)
then buy SATA>PATA converter (eBay is cheap source)
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-IDE-ATA-100...715811742QQcategoryZ64459QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
You plug it to your PATA HDD and connect SATA cable (and power cable)

 

[John O]

BTW: ABIT is in "financial" difficulties (aka almost bankrupt!) Stay

away from them until they become more
stable!!!!

That approach will certainly hasten their demise. If they make good stuff,
I'd say keep buying so they don't disappear or get swallowed. ;-)

--no interest in ABIT of any type

-John O

 

[John O]

Hello, All.

Am thinking about upgrading my motherboard, and have a basic
compatibility question...My existing hard drives (2) work fine, and are
set up standard ATA. I was looking at an Abit KV7-V Socket A board
which, according to the specs, is a "native SATA" setup. My question
is: Are PATA & SATA hd's two entirely-different animals? Will my
existing hd's even function w/ the Abit board? I've got a total of
120GB of storage w/ the 2 existing drives and they work fine, so am not
even remotely-interested in going out and buying another hd. In other
words, is the SATA characteristic something "built into" the hard
drives--or the board-and-cables?
Thanks much for your time & attention to detail [

You need to know how many PATA ports this board might have. Some newer mobos
only have one, which means your two HDDs and CD can't all work at the same
time. The mobo might have four SATA ports...

I'm in the process of playing with some SATA adapters for EIDE/PATA drives,
and they work OK, but I'd make sure you have safe drive images before you
experiment with them.

-John O

 

[FlyBoy]

If a motherboard has native SATA support, that means it comes equipped with the connectors needed for SATA drives. You can still use PATA drives with such a motherboard, but you'll need to purchase and install an IDE-to-serial ATA converter. Frankly, your money would be better spent on a serial ATA hard disk.

Native SATA means that SATA is supported directly from the BIOS and
that no additional drivers are needed to read/write/boot!! from a SATA
drive and no need for F6 during installation of Windows.

I have had a related problem with a 160 GB SATA drive with completely
installed Windows and applications on it which I will share here for
'educational purposes'.

When in August 2004 my eight months old Abit(!) AT7MAX2 MB would not
boot any more, after three (not new but 'repaired') replacement boards
(Nr. 1 did not boot at all, Nr. 2 not after a week and Nr. 3 not after
2 days) I decided to buy a new board (Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 rev2) to
end the many hours of frustration (if I'd tell the whole story it
would take several pages - suffice it to say that currently I am not
on speaking terms wth Abit). This was not the first Abit board that
died on me and then too I received a 'refurbished' board which did not
function properly. My advice is to NEVER accept any replacement board
other than a new one if they cannot repair your own board.

The problem was that both these boards have SATA controllers which
need a driver to be installed in Widows in order to boot. On the Abit
board (with Highpoint controller) this was done in Windows on a PATA
drive on the standard IDE cntroller before I transferred it to this
SATA drive. With the Gigabyte board (with Silicon Image controller) I
had a big problem because it needed a different driver. In order to
install it I needed to boot into Windows and in order to boot into
Windows I needed the driver to be installed. Nice one! :-((

This shows the necessity to be able to install such a driver in some
sort of 'DOS mode' without the need to boot into Windows.
So Microsoft.... Please make such an option avaiable.

Since it was a multiboot system with four Windows installations on it
(2x Win98se - Win2K - WinXPpro) It would be a lot of hassle to move
all these partitions to a PATA drive, then install the new driver and
after that move them back to the SATA drive.

After a lot of searching I was finally able to buy a PATA2SATA adapter
from Startech in my country.

http://www.startech.com/ststore/itemdetail.cfm?ProductID=PATA2SATA&mt=

Since then I have also come across this one from Q-tec.

http://www.qtec.info/products/product.htm?artnr=14283

With this adapter I could boot into Windows directly from the standard
IDE (PATA) controller without the Mobo or Windows 'knowing' that it
was not a PATA (EIDE) drive. Once in Windows it is then possible to
install the required SATA driver and move the drive to the SATA
controller.

However... my problems were not over with the purchase of this adapter
(which has worked flawlessly all the time) and as a result of that and
the fact that five weeks ago for the first time in 20 years of PC use
a HD in another system died on me (swish-click, swish-click,
swish-click). It was one of three IBM DTLA-307045 drives that I had
bought in 2000 and 2001 and then I discovered this.

http://techreport.com/news_reply.x/2799
http://www.ibmdeskstar75gxplitigation.com/
http://www.sheller.com/Practice.asp?PracticeID=114

(Lucky me eh? - Notice the presence of Abit on that last page)

I have now bought a 250 GB PATA drive and moved the contents of the
SATA drive to this one. I also bought two 80 GB PATA drives that are
now in that other system in a RAID-1 configuration (on an Abit(!)
KR7A-133R which has a story to it also).
And I also bought an external enclosure for this SATA drive so I could
use it as another data drive (I have two other PATA 160 GB drives in
external enclosures). This one.

http://www.blueangel.net.cn/other/en/productsX/index2.asp?lei=26&ming=101

http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/I/Computer-external/a/9000000064724.htm

Which turned out to be a PATA enclosure with a very small PATA2SATA
adapter. And although it did work with a PATA drive it didn't with a
SATA drive. (The retailer just received this product the day before I
bought it and had not tested it yet. He could not get one to work
eiher and nor did another customer... sigh....)

I finally ended up buying this 5 1/4 enclosure

http://www.mapower.com/Product.asp?CateID=51&LineID=2

which has it's internal IDE connecter situated in a way that makes it
possible to use the Startech PATA2SATA adapter inside this enclosure.
How's that one for a solution eh?

Since I also have two Abit serillel adapters (one came with the
AT7MAX2 and the other they send me at my request with one of the
replacement boards, which do the opposite of the PATA2SATA adapter and
make it possible to connect a PATA drive to a SATA controller

http://www.abit-usa.com/technology/serillel_new.php

I can now connect anything to anthing. ;-) I could even connect a PATA
disk to a PATA controller using a SATA cable and both adapters )

Conclusions

1. Microsoft should make it possible to install a driver in Windows
without Windows running.

2. It makes life much simpler if you have such a PATA2SATA adapter.

Hope this was useful.

Good luck.

 

[FlyBoy]

Native SATA means that SATA is supported directly from the BIOS and
that no additional drivers are needed to read/write/boot!! from a SATA
drive and no need for F6 during installation of Windows.

I should have added that whether a Motherboard has native SATA support
is decided by the chipset, in particular the southbridge.

Another tip. Make a slipstreamed Windows installation CD that has the
SATA driver on it. Just Google for slipstreaming.

Good luck.

 

[frodo]

virtually all MB's w/ SATA also still have the PATA interfaces too, so
you're "old" drives are just fine.

1) ABIT is indeed undergoing some flux, but it's not true they're headed
for bankruptcy. They're "consolidating"! Stay tuned...

2) why the h*ll are you looking at a Socket A motherboard! You'll pay a
LOT more for the older socket A processor, since the supply is dwindling.
Go Athlon64, 754 pin if you can find a good deal (lots of cheap MB's
avail, the processor itself was a bit rare until resupplyed last month -
most 754's are Semprons), or 939 pin. Less $$, newer tech.