Windows Appears to Recognize a SATA Drive as an IDE Drive

[Rob T]

I replaced my IDE C: drive with a SATA drive (I still have an IDE D: drive).
The BIOS in my computer recognizes the drive as SATA, and the computer will
run from it, but it runs as slow as the old IDE drive. When I look in Device
Manager, and System Information, both drives appear to be indicated as IDE;
i.e. when I look at the properties for the drive all I see are IDE
indications. Also, in Device Manager there's an entry for "IDE ATA/ATAPI
Controllers", but nothing for SATA. The computer is a Dell Dimension 8300,
and I've installed all of the BIOS, Chipset etc updates that are available,
but still the same.

I don't know if it's because I don't really understand what I'm looking at
in Device Mgr etc., or if Windows really isn't handling the drive as a SATA
Drive. Does anybody have any information about this situation; are there
Windows drivers that I need to install?

 

[Jerry]

I believe that's a limitation of XP.

I have two each SATA CD/DVD drives/burners - they are both identified as a
'SCSI CdRom Device' - yet both function correctly as DVDs. Other diagnostic
programs have similar problems with correctly identifying SATA devices.

My two SATA harddrives just appear as hard drives - no IDE/SATA/Scsi as part
of their identity in Device Manager.

 

[peter]

in device manager if you expand the IDE ATA/Atapi controller you should
fine both a Parallel IDE controller (PATA) and a Serial ATA controller
(SATA)..........when you click properties on either one it should show the
channels at the top of the box when you click the channels it should show
you the name of the HD connected to that channel.
If you check your BIOS you should find a setting to turn on the SATA
abilities......not sure where is is in a Dell.

If the setting in the BIOS is on and the controller does not show under
device manager then the drivers are NOT installed.

peter

 

[Jerry]

Where are you getting that info? I did what you said and found no such info
and I have two each SATA hard drives and two each SATA CD/DVD burners.

 

[DL]

I believe it depends on the Controller in ATA/ATAPI devices.
Nvidea sata controler is displayed in DM as 'Serial ATA Controler'

 

[DL]

It depends on the sata controler they are either listed in IDE ATA/ATAPI
controlers or SCSI & Raid controlers

 

[Rob T]

In my DM, when I expand the IDE ATA/Atapi item, all I have there are:
Intel(R) Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
Intel(R) Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel

In the SCSI and Raid Controllers are:
ACARD AEC-6710 PCE SCSI Controller (Windows 2000/XP)
NERO IMAGEDRIVE SCSI Controller

I don't have any SCSI Devices installed, and I think the "NERO" entry is
something that the Nero Burning software installed. If I don't have the SATA
drivers installed, how do I install them? I've looked everywhere, but can't
find them anywhere. I checked the Dell website, and installed everything
that I could install. There're three items listed for SATA; 1) A utility to
manage a RAID Array (which I don't have), 2) A firmware upgrade for the
Promise Serial ATA Raid controller, that I aparently don't have, since I got
an install error "Adapter Not Found", and caused the machine to fail (I had
to fight to boot into Safe Mode and return to an earlier Restore Point to get
the computer to work again, and 3) A Promise Driver described as,"A02 WHQL'ed
Release Version of the Serial ATA RAID controller drivers for W2K and WXP on
Dimension and Precision systems", which included a disclaimer that it doesn't
apply to all configurations. I doesn't apply to mine, since the install
instructions indicate a device not in my DM.

Would the drivers be on the WXP Install disk somewhere and if so, how do I
find them? I've explored the disk, but couldn't fine any reference. I've
contacted Dell, but they haven't been much help.

 

[V Green]

In my DM, when I expand the IDE ATA/Atapi item, all I have there are:
Intel(R) Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
Intel(R) Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel

In the SCSI and Raid Controllers are:
ACARD AEC-6710 PCE SCSI Controller (Windows 2000/XP)
NERO IMAGEDRIVE SCSI Controller

I don't have any SCSI Devices installed, and I think the "NERO" entry is
something that the Nero Burning software installed. If I don't have the SATA
drivers installed, how do I install them? I've looked everywhere, but can't
find them anywhere. I checked the Dell website, and installed everything
that I could install. There're three items listed for SATA; 1) A utility to
manage a RAID Array (which I don't have), 2) A firmware upgrade for the
Promise Serial ATA Raid controller, that I aparently don't have, since I got
an install error "Adapter Not Found", and caused the machine to fail (I had
to fight to boot into Safe Mode and return to an earlier Restore Point to get
the computer to work again, and 3) A Promise Driver described as,"A02 WHQL'ed
Release Version of the Serial ATA RAID controller drivers for W2K and WXP on
Dimension and Precision systems", which included a disclaimer that it doesn't
apply to all configurations. I doesn't apply to mine, since the install
instructions indicate a device not in my DM.

Would the drivers be on the WXP Install disk somewhere and if so, how do I
find them? I've explored the disk, but couldn't fine any reference. I've
contacted Dell, but they haven't been much help.

If you will find & run a disk benchmark on your HD, I think
you will find that this is a tempest in a teapot.

Enumerating the device as SATA has NO effect on how well
it's working. My 82801 controller has both parallel IDE and SATA
attached, Device Manager says they're all fine but does NOT
mention SATA at all.

But running disk benchmarks tell me that the SATA is performing
up to spec.

I suggest you do the same and get on with life.

 

[Rob T]

Thanks for the idea. I located and installed three benchmark programs, and
the results were as follows:

Test 1 C: (SATA) Avg 2.7MB/s; D: (IDE) Avg 20.5MB/s
Test 2 C: (SATA) Avg 3.2MB/s; D: (IDE) Avg 45.4MB/s
Test 3 C: (SATA) Avg 2.3MB/s; D: (IDE) Avg 58.3MB/s

The SATA transfer rates are abssurdly low, and even the IDE speeds are far
less than the Ultra ATA 100 rating for the drive. Since the computer is 5
years old, I also tried plugging the SATA drive for SATA 150, but the results
were virtually the same.

Perhaps this isn't a tempest in a teapot and would appear that I do, in
fact, need to get some resolution before going on with my life.

 

[Rob T]

The SATA controller is integrated into the motherboare, and the best I can
determine from the Dell support site is that it's a Promise (which it
certainly doesn't show). There's an update for the Promise driver on the
site, but it indicates it's for SATA Raid, which I'm not using, and it won't
install. The download creates a diskette, but there's no executable on it,
so I'm suspecting that it's for inserting at the beginning of a Windows
installation, when it prompts for "... SCSI or Raid controllers". What else
is strange is that in Disk Manager (in Control Panel>Administrative
Tools>Disk Management), the C: drive is shown as "Disk 1" and the D: drive is
shown as "Disk 0". I don't know if that matters, but it's not what I'm used
to seing.

 

[V Green]

You will never under real-world conditions likely see a 100MB/s rating
for an ATA-100 drive if the benchmark app is written properly. That's
just marketing hype. Kind of like 1000W ratings for car stereo amps - peak
only and not sustained.

The results for your P-ATA drives are reasonable for SUSTAINED (not BURST
which, of course, is the number that the drive mgfrs use since it looks good)
transfer
rates. The S-ATA readings are not.

Have you downloaded and installed the latest chipset drivers from Intel? Have
you
checked to make sure that UDMA mode 5 is selected in DM under Primary/Secondary
IDE Channel>>Advanced Settings?

 

[Rob T]

--
Rob Taylor

You will never under real-world conditions likely see a 100MB/s rating
for an ATA-100 drive if the benchmark app is written properly. That's
just marketing hype. Kind of like 1000W ratings for car stereo amps - peak
only and not sustained.

The results for your P-ATA drives are reasonable for SUSTAINED (not BURST
which, of course, is the number that the drive mgfrs use since it looks good)
transfer
rates. The S-ATA readings are not.

I can pretty much agree with the above, especially since the IDE drive is
mostly a software repository. I don't actually run anything from it.

Have you downloaded and installed the latest chipset drivers from Intel?

Yup! I've downloaded and installed every update available (from the
Dell Support site). I don't know if I have an Intel chipset, but the latest
chipset update from Dell for this computer has been installed a year ago.

Have

you
checked to make sure that UDMA mode 5 is selected in DM under Primary/Secondary
IDE Channel>>Advanced Settings?

Yup! I checked them again just to make sure. The UDMA Mode 5 is only
available for the Primary channel which has the SATA drive (There are two
Primary chanels shown in DM), the other one (for the IDE drive) shows "PIO
Mode", although "DMA If Available" is selected just above that entry.

 

[V Green]

--
Rob Taylor




I can pretty much agree with the above, especially since the IDE drive is
mostly a software repository. I don't actually run anything from it.
Yup! I've downloaded and installed every update available (from the
Dell Support site). I don't know if I have an Intel chipset, but the latest
chipset update from Dell for this computer has been installed a year ago.

Have
Yup! I checked them again just to make sure. The UDMA Mode 5 is only
available for the Primary channel which has the SATA drive (There are two
Primary chanels shown in DM), the other one (for the IDE drive) shows "PIO
Mode", although "DMA If Available" is selected just above that entry.

What you just wrote would account totally for the bad numbers IF you
are getting which drive is which mixed up in your benchmark results.
PIO mode is dog slow. Are
you SURE, I mean, REALLY, REALLY sure that the SATA drive is the
one with the slow banchmark?

What exactly does DM say your drive controller is (chip number)? If it's an
Intel,
I would go to support.intel.com and see what's new. I would NOT
trust Dell to be up on this.

 

[Rob T]

--
Rob Taylor

What you just wrote would account totally for the bad numbers IF you
are getting which drive is which mixed up in your benchmark results.
PIO mode is dog slow. Are
you SURE, I mean, REALLY, REALLY sure that the SATA drive is the
one with the slow banchmark?

What exactly does DM say your drive controller is (chip number)? If it's an
Intel,
I would go to support.intel.com and see what's new. I would NOT
trust Dell to be up on this.

Rob Taylor Wrote:
I cleared out a lot of the old text in this because this will be large.
I'm not really all that familiar with all the inner workings of DM, so let me
'splain atcha what DM says.
After 48 years as a programmer, systems analyst, and hardware engineer (the
old mainframe days), the way things progress now, I feel like a dinosaur, and
that I've never looked a computer in the face in my entire life. That said,
here's the info.

Under "Disk Drives, the two entries are reversed from what I'd expect; i.e.
the IDE drive is first (shown as disk 0) and the SATA drive is second (shown
as disk 1). I verified this both by selecting the "Volumes" tab and pressing
"Populate", and with Disk Manager in Control Panel. Given that, I can only
infer that the two controllers would pair the same way, however I don't know
how to verify that. Under "IDEE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", there are five
entries; "Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 24D1" and "24DB",
two "Primary IDE Channels" and one "Secondary IDE Channel".
The first Primary IDE Channel, which I thought is Drive 0 (The IDE Drive),
shows; for Device 0, "Auto Detection" (greyed out), "DMA If Available", and
PIO Mode, for Device 1, "Auto Detection", "DMA If Available" and "Not
Applicable" (no second drive). The second Primary IDE Channel, which I
thought is for Drive 1 (The SATA Drive), shows; for Device 0, "Auto
Detection" (greyed out), "DMA If Available", and "Ultra DMA Mode 5", for
Device 1, "Auto Detection", "DMA If Available" and "Not Applicable".
Now, if I truly have that backwards, a question immediately come to mind;
Why does the D: drive respond very quickly when I do something on it, while
C: is sluggish.
Where do I find the chip number? I'd really like to go to the Intel site,
but don't know what to look for.

This problem is really maddening, and I'm getting into a real bind. I have
to do a major update to the database of a Political Campaign Management
system that I developed (currently handling 6 campaigns for Broward County,
Fl). The database is pretty large, and takes quite a long time to update. I
just installed this SATA disk last October, and haven't run a full county
update since; I'm really worried, so any/all help you can provide will be
very much appreciated.

 

[Rob T]

--
Rob Taylor

P. S. I just found something. In the Controller Properties in DM, I
clicked on "Update Driver", and this time I picked "Install from specific
location", "Don't search ...", and then unchecked "Show Compatible Hardware".
Under Intel, there was a controller named "Intel(R) 6300ESB Ultra ATA
Storage/SATA Controller 25A3". I selected it, clicked Next and got a warning
stating that Windows can't verify that this controller is compatible with my
hardware, and installing it might make the computer unstable, or not work at
all. I was afraid to install it because now I'm not sure which of the two
controllers actually controls the SATA drive, as well as that error message.
Any ideas about this?

 

[V Green]

--
Rob Taylor

P. S. I just found something. In the Controller Properties in DM, I
clicked on "Update Driver", and this time I picked "Install from specific
location", "Don't search ...", and then unchecked "Show Compatible Hardware".
Under Intel, there was a controller named "Intel(R) 6300ESB Ultra ATA
Storage/SATA Controller 25A3". I selected it, clicked Next and got a warning
stating that Windows can't verify that this controller is compatible with my
hardware, and installing it might make the computer unstable, or not work at
all. I was afraid to install it because now I'm not sure which of the two
controllers actually controls the SATA drive, as well as that error message.
Any ideas about this?

Don't do it. Unchecking Show Compatible Hardware does just what it says -
it's exposing a heretofore "invisible" driver that somehow is on the system that
is incompatible with your controller.

 

[V Green]

--
Rob Taylor



Rob Taylor Wrote:
I cleared out a lot of the old text in this because this will be large.
I'm not really all that familiar with all the inner workings of DM, so let me
'splain atcha what DM says.
After 48 years as a programmer, systems analyst, and hardware engineer (the
old mainframe days), the way things progress now, I feel like a dinosaur, and
that I've never looked a computer in the face in my entire life. That said,
here's the info.

Under "Disk Drives, the two entries are reversed from what I'd expect; i.e.
the IDE drive is first (shown as disk 0) and the SATA drive is second (shown
as disk 1). I verified this both by selecting the "Volumes" tab and pressing
"Populate", and with Disk Manager in Control Panel. Given that, I can only
infer that the two controllers would pair the same way, however I don't know
how to verify that. Under "IDEE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", there are five
entries; "Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 24D1" and "24DB",
two "Primary IDE Channels" and one "Secondary IDE Channel".
The first Primary IDE Channel, which I thought is Drive 0 (The IDE Drive),
shows; for Device 0, "Auto Detection" (greyed out), "DMA If Available", and
PIO Mode, for Device 1, "Auto Detection", "DMA If Available" and "Not
Applicable" (no second drive). The second Primary IDE Channel, which I
thought is for Drive 1 (The SATA Drive), shows; for Device 0, "Auto
Detection" (greyed out), "DMA If Available", and "Ultra DMA Mode 5", for
Device 1, "Auto Detection", "DMA If Available" and "Not Applicable".
Now, if I truly have that backwards, a question immediately come to mind;
Why does the D: drive respond very quickly when I do something on it, while
C: is sluggish.
Where do I find the chip number? I'd really like to go to the Intel site,
but don't know what to look for.

This problem is really maddening, and I'm getting into a real bind. I have
to do a major update to the database of a Political Campaign Management
system that I developed (currently handling 6 campaigns for Broward County,
Fl). The database is pretty large, and takes quite a long time to update. I
just installed this SATA disk last October, and haven't run a full county
update since; I'm really worried, so any/all help you can provide will be
very much appreciated.

First off, BACK UP THAT DATABASE and anything else that's critical.
Playing with device drivers can leave your system unbootable.

If this upcoming update is as important as it sounds, I wouldn't play
with the system at all. Even if it's slow. Get your important work done
THEN come back to this issue.

But if you insist...

RE: the "reversed drives" issue:
Drop into your BIOS and find out what it's saying about your HD's
and what IDE channel they're on.

For the "slow" issue:
Go to the Intel support site and get the latest chipset drivers for the
82801. Intel's drivers will NOT install if you try to install them to the
wrong chipset so you should be safe.

If that doesn't help, it's time to take apart your computer and start checking
the mode select jumpers on your HD's and make sure none of them are on
CABLE_SEL and are all Master/Slave jumpered as appropriate.

I have heard (but have never tried myself) that uninstalling the IDE Controller
from DM and rebooting may clear up a borked install. When you reboot after
uninstalling, XP should locate and reinstall the driver.

Get your database update done first. Just start it and go to bed - that's
what I do with multiple parallel video transcodes - they're all done next
morning or later thae next day.

 

[DL]

The floppy is used in conjunction with the F6 option to install third party
drivers, during the installation or repair of winxp
With some controlers it is neccessary to configure raid as JBOD when using a
single sata hd