Will SATA 3.0Gb/s work with SATA I Contoller?

[rkr1958]

I know if it did work it'd run at the slower SATA150 speed. Are the new SATA II drives backwards compatible with SATA I motherboards?

[ROF]

yes.

[rfielder]

I know if it did work it'd run at the slower SATA150 speed. Are the new SATA II drives backwards compatible with SATA I motherboards?

I just installed a Samsung 250Gb SATAII drive into a P5P800 motherboard, and it works.

However - the drive has a jumper that forces SATA I compatibility, since there are issues with some SATA I controllers.

[rkr1958]

Thanks! Wow, your responses were almost instanteous! Thanks again.

[DarrellS]

I bought a WD 250GB SATA drive today and it won't work even with the jumper. Windows can't see the drive.
Funny thing is when I first ran the Lifeguard Tools program, It saw the new drive and told me that I needed to make it read more than 137GB. When I clicked yes to make it read the full 250GB and to restart the computer. It never read the drive again.
Needless to say, the drive is going back tomorrow. If I have to buy a card to read the drive then I might as well buy an IDE card and use the other ATA drives I have laying around.

[InXess]

Instead call WD tech support, this is exactly what they're for.

[waheed]

Are the new SATA II drives backwards compatible with SATA I motherboards?

Yes, but I think it does depend on the SATA controller.

[chesterfield]

SATA II is an awesome thing when paired with a new SATA II MOBO and a 2,8 Dual Core Processor!!!!!!

[DarrellS]

I took mine back to CompUSA. If they would've had the WD2000JD SATA/150 which I wanted to buy for $93.99 in the first place then I'd be in business but I guess that ad was just to get me in the store to sell me a more expensive drive which isn't compatible with my motherboard. The only two WD drives they had was the one I returned for $151 and a 300GB for $200.

PC Club has the WD3200JD/150 on sale for $160 but they closed the store on my side of town down and I don't really want to drive all the way to Mesa to buy a hard drive.

[TBoneit]

Theres the problem. If your Computer profile is up to date, it won't see more than 137Gb under Win2000, WinXP SP2 is really needed.

[lenti_75]

SATA II is an awesome thing when paired with a new SATA II MOBO and a 2,8 Dual Core Processor!!!!!!

that's what YOU THINK....
in reality, even a ide si good, the hard drive can't write that fast anyway....it's ALL about how fast the drive responds, those tiny ms numbers.....

it WORKS, you have to set-up the jumper to make it backwrds compatible

[chesterfield]

[/quote]
that's what YOU THINK....
in reality, even a ide si good, the hard drive can't write that fast anyway....it's ALL about how fast the drive responds, those tiny ms numbers.....

it WORKS, you have to set-up the jumper to make it backwrds compatible[/quote]



WELL......under my old setup with original SDATA drives paired with a 3.2 prescott, it would take 12 minutes to encode MPEG to DVD and burn a 3.16gig DVD, now it takes only 8 minutes and my quality score from NERO tools is still above 95% using Verbatim 16X DVD-R.......

[DarrellS]

Theres the problem. If your Computer profile is up to date, it won't see more than 137Gb under Win2000, WinXP SP2 is really needed.

Nope, I have a 200 GB IDE drive and it runs just fine on W2K. The answer was in my motherboard manual. Compatible with 1st generation Serial ATA drives.

I don't even want to get started on XP. I know three people who had to call MS to get a new license from doing minor changes to their system this weekend. I don't need That bullcrap. Especially since I don't have a phone. I'd be SOL with an XP operating system. I can install 2000 as many times as I want without having to jump through hoops for Bill Gates. I'll be damned if I spend $150 on XP spyware or is that malware that takes you and your computer hostage.

It took my brother two days to get XP to recognize the extra 120 GB on his drive and he had to go buy another phonecard so he could reactivate his XP license.

[bmiller]

The windows sp2 comment is correct.I installed 2 sata drives a while back and had to install sp2 in order for windows to see the 200gb hard drives correctly.At first it only saw them as 137 gb.
Formatted with the disc management tool and all was ok.

[waheed]

I am using SP2. I have installed 3 SATA drives without any problems. They are:

SATA I 160GB
SATA I 200GB
SATA II 250GB

[InXess]

You don't need to install SP2, what you need is this (or equivalent): maxtor big drive enabler to patch your system.

It's all over Google, no need for download link.

[DarrellS]

My brother has two SATA II drives and the first one installed perfect a couple of months ago but for some reason, this one was a bear. The first thing you're supposed to see with the WD Lifeguard Tools program is an option for large drive support. This time it didn't pop up so it only made 137GB usable. He found the original copy from the first installation and when he started the program, it recognized the drive as not being correctly formatted and proceeded to install it correctly.

It helps to have a MB that is SATA II compatible or at least one that is backwards compatible with the jumpers but from what all I've read at the MSI website and WD's website, it's not possible with my board without a new controller card.

[lenti_75]

I had sata 160 on win xp without sp2 and no problems....

[DarrellS]

It's not a matter of operating system, as far as XP and 2000 go. It's a matter of motherboards and controllers. Some are backwards compatible if jumpered and some are not.

The box says that a SATA II drive will work in both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Not sure why it wouldn't work on a 98SE machine but it's not listed as a compatible operating system.

[InXess]

Everything revolves around 48bit LB addressing that was not implemented in earlier windows versions (no such drives yet).

see: http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm

[DarrellS]

Thanks for the info and link, InXess.

[InXess]