Stupid question...

gareth170 · 28 Apr 2007 at 22:55

tTz said:
What IDE SATA option?

I can't even find this SATA hard drive in the BIOS, incidentally, though Windows Setup finds it, as does the nVidia RAID setup (it's an nForce 4 board, hence nVidia RAID).

in the bios u should have a option to use your sata drives as ide... that way u won't need raid drivers..

it'll tell u in the manuel from your motherboard, where to look

sjt269 · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:19

How can I use a SATA drive as an IDE? I don't understand what you're meaning. :confused:

MarcLister · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:21

tTz said:
How can I use a SATA drive as an IDE? I don't understand what you're meaning.

Tbh I've no idea what he's on about. I don't get how a computer can be made to "see" a SATA drive as an IDE one. :confused:

mr.sly · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:36

Yeah he's right most boards will have an "OnBoard SATA/IDE Control" so you can switch between IDE and SATA. Just have a look in the BIOS in Intergrated Peripherals to see if its there.

Energize · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:37

I had this problem once, as soon as I selected the sata ide option it detected the drive and worked fine.

MarcLister · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:37

Slyvester said:
Yeah he's right most boards will have an "OnBoard SATA/IDE Control" so you can switch between IDE and SATA. Just have a look in the BIOS in Intergrated Peripherals to see if its there.

Doesn't that just tell the motherboard to look for a SATA or IDE drive? Not to treat a SATA as an IDE?

d.chatten · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:38

Could you let us know the make and model of the motherboard as we may be able to offer a bit more help if we have this info, also would it be possible to tell us what bios version is installed.

gareth170 · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:41

see??

mr.sly · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:42

MarcLister said:
Doesn't that just tell the motherboard to look for a SATA or IDE drive? Not to treat a SATA as an IDE?

I'm not 100% but I just had a look at my settings and its set to IDE and I'm using a SATA drive. So its definitely worth a try.

MarcLister · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:42

gareth170 said:
see??

I call Photoshop.

Might not matter though if his motherboard doesn't have this feature.

gareth170 · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:50

MarcLister said:
I call Photoshop.

Might not matter though if his motherboard doesn't have this feature.

that why i said look in the manuel book or download the manuel, like i did for my motherboard

gareth170 · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:58

MarcLister said:
Doesn't that just tell the motherboard to look for a SATA or IDE drive? Not to treat a SATA as an IDE?

it does treat a SATA as an IDE... plus it still runs at sata speed...

MarcLister · 28 Apr 2007 at 23:59

gareth170 said:
it does treat a SATA as an IDE... plus it still runs at sata speed...

Hmm well I'll wait to see if tTz has this feature. Can honestly say I've never heard of it.

sjt269 · 29 Apr 2007 at 14:34

Hmm. I've never heard of it either. The board is a Gigabyte K8 of some description...socket 939, nForce 4. I'll have a poke around in the BIOS and see if I can find that option.

:edit:

Doesn't look like that option is in there.

gareth170 · 29 Apr 2007 at 14:55

maybe its only on newer motherboards.. because i bought my motherboard about a month ago and it as that option

sjt269 · 29 Apr 2007 at 14:59

Right, well, I've fixed it. More or less.

I've decided to sacrafice an old, slow, spare hard drive I've got to act as the boot drive on his PC. The BIOS, I have discovered, picks up the SATA one fine now, as a secondary hard drive. No idea why, since I've not changed anything. I thought about installing/copying Windows to the SATA drive and taking the old one out again, but the computer's working now, plus I really don't have the time to install XP and all the utilities on the new one (they're already present on the spare one).

I'll wait and see what my brother says before I change anything else. If he's happy with the extra 10Gb and a slower boot drive, then I'll leave it as it is. If he would prefer it the other way, I'll fix it up for him. It's his decision, and at least the HDD is getting some use this way.

This whole thing has been pretty bizarre, but thanks A LOT to all you guys for helping me out with it, it really is appreciated in a major way. Thanks.

MarcLister · 29 Apr 2007 at 15:00

It might be worth running a chkdsk on the SATA disk if you can and see if there are any errors on there. Just something I thought of now.

sjt269 · 29 Apr 2007 at 15:07

MarcLister said:
It might be worth running a chkdsk on the SATA disk if you can and see if there are any errors on there. Just something I thought of now.

Sure thing, I'll give that a go too.

MarcLister · 29 Apr 2007 at 15:09

tTz said:
Sure thing, I'll give that a go too.

I was going to suggest a Linux Live CD or something like Ultimate Boot CD/System Rescue CD. They'd have a disk check util on there. Course with a Linux Live CD you'd be able to access the Internet on your PC and not worry about the spyware. :cool: