SATA Drivers

Puffmac

Puffmac

Puffmac

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13 Jun 2009
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16
So I've read lots and just want some clarification. Do SATA drives require drivers to be installed prior to a windows xp/vista installation, or does the motherboard load drivers when it's plugged in. The board I'm specifically referring to is the GA-EX58-UD3R as I'm about to embark on a new build for my friend.

Cheers
Andrew
 
Not since 98se, and possibly not even then.

You'll need drivers to install onto a raid, but that's all. I believe windows 7 no longer requires these either.

If this is your first build, which your question suggests it might be, are you sure you want to try making a computer for a friend? It's not exactly a painless process if something misbehaves or you fail to read the motherboard manual
 
JonJ678 said:
Not since 98se, and possibly not even then.

You'll need drivers to install onto a raid, but that's all. I believe windows 7 no longer requires these either.

If this is your first build, which your question suggests it might be, are you sure you want to try making a computer for a friend? It's not exactly a painless process if something misbehaves or you fail to read the motherboard manual
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It's not my own first build. I've been upgrading/building PCs from scratch for years, it's just SATA drives I've never worked with. I'm still using IDE drives right now and didn't bother getting a new HD when I bought my new i7 system components;).
 
SATA drives are far easier to deal with than IDE - literally just plug them in and they work. No master slave rubbish! It's best to install Windows with just the boot drive plugged in to avoid any quirks; you then set boot priority in BIOS if needed, but normally it works just fine.
 
miniyazz said:
SATA drives are far easier to deal with than IDE - literally just plug them in and they work. No master slave rubbish! It's best to install Windows with just the boot drive plugged in to avoid any quirks; you then set boot priority in BIOS if needed, but normally it works just fine.
Click to expand...

tyvm:cool:
 
SATA drives won't, SATA controllers might, depending on the mode and version of Windows. For instance a SATA controller in IDE mode won't need specific drivers, but in AHCI or RAID it will, which means if the version of Windows isn't recent enough to include them you'll need to dig out the floppy drive or look into slipstreaming (XP), or put the drivers on a USB flash drive (Vista/7).
 
For AHCI mode drivers will be needed for XP and older but not Vista/7. Advantages include hot swapping SATA ports (if you're building the PC for him, I hardly think he's going to be plugging and unplugging hard drives so that's not a concern) and native command queuing, and the benefits of that on consumer systems are.. limited. Basically AHCI has next-to-no benefits for joe bloggs computer user, but unless you're using XP, there's also no reason not to enable it..
 
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