Building a new machine with SATA...

[Cobra]

I'm going to be building a new machine soon and for the first time I'll be using a SATA hard drive. It will use Windows XP Home and an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard.

I'm hoping that it will just be recognised right away in BIOS and Windows will install as normal, although I hear that I have to set up RAID (even though it is a single drive) by pressing F6 during Windows setup.

Has anyone else done this before?

Thanks very much,

Cobra

[redwudz]

If you want it as your boot drive, and it's not the on the primary controller, yes, I believe you will have to hit F6 during the install. Did this once, don't exactly remember.

I know if it is not the boot, you can install the RAID or secondary controller drivers later. That is usually what I end up doing if I'm not fast enough on the F6 key.

Also, be sure to have the path to, or the drivers ready to go when XP asks for them.

[rallynavvie]

Check that other post in here recently about SATA drives for my take on them. All I have to say is 10k SATA Raptors rock?

[thecoalman]

My comp came with a 3.5 with the sata drivers. You press F6 (i think) almost right at the beggining of install. Put the floppy in and the rest is normal install from that point. At least on my system.

[Cobra]

OK, thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to go ahead and try building with a SATA drive as standard. It's only £2 more expensive than an ATA133 drive so we may as well grab the extra bandwidth.

Thanks again,

Cobra

[videocheez]

I'm ready to buy an new computer. I'm thinking about having a custom box built for me. Currently I have a 2.53GHz P4, 1GB RAM and 2x80GB RAiD Hardrives. This system gas been great but I'm thinking its time to get something big, better, faster,stronger, newer.......ad infinitum.

During the day time I continually game. On the weekends sometimes maybe 8 hours. In between gaming I will edit video and chat with online friends. At night almost everyday I'm encoding and processing video.

I was considering a dual processor system but the guy at the computer store was telling me that the dual processor systems are mainly for servers and dont do the multimedia and gaming as good as a P4.

I wanted to see if you guys had an opinions on a good system that work as a gamer by day and an encoder by night. If I'm asking for to versitile a system. I would like to have the good hardcore reliable robust encoding machine.

Also will programs like virtual dub and CCE take advantage of both processors.

Thanks in advance,

VC

[rallynavvie]

Start a new thread with dual-processor computer in the subject and I'll give you the rundown on SMP workstations on the market now. No need to hijack Cobra's SATA thread for something that has a lot of information on it.

[videocheez]

Ooops. I didnt mean to do that. My apologies.

[Cobra]

Grrrrrr!

[Madz]

I looked at SATA when I first came out (about the time I built this box - 3/03) and it didn't seem to be worth the extra expense. My mobo has an onboard Promise SATA RAID controller, BTW. ATA133 vs. ATA150. Huge difference? At that time, the 80GB WD SATA drive cost nearly twice a much as the "special edition" 8MB-cache IDE edition (bought two fo those and an IDE RAID card; SATA-IDE adapters could've let me use these w/ my onboard, but not for ~$30+ each!). The advantage, however, of the tiny cables (from a case airflow POV) were certainly enticing. But then there's the fact that SATA drives don't use a standard Molex power socket! Required an adapter that had to purchased for ~$10 more (per drive) from the vendor of the drives! Done on purpose was that? :P Anyhow, I think I'll wait until SATA 2.0 (ATA300) hits the market, then it'll spark my interest.

[mujahid7ia]

Most PSUs come w/ adapters now, fyi.

SATA 2.0? Sounds interesting.

[rallynavvie]

SATA 2 won't come out until after 1.5 which is basically upgrading the connectors so that they don't break so easy. And SATA will never replace SCSI in my book until they put the controller on the drive itself and stop draining system resources. Onboard SCSI host is a beautiful thing.

Most PSUs not only come with adapter, my Antec 550 came with no less than 2 SATA power connectors on the cables. Also many SATA drives have both Molex and native SATA power inputs, such as my 74GB Raptor. I think it would be better to have only one or the other on there since plugging in both will toast your drive and I can see someone who doesn't know anything doing just that.

As far as I'm concerned there is no SATA beyond the Raptors. The other drives are simply IDE drives I can use on my SATA controller, they offer little to no advantage over IDE for the now.

[Madz]

I'm sure PSU's would come w/ them now. It was too new at time I built this box.

[Cobra]

The Maxtor drive we ordered takes both SATA and Molex connections, but adapters cost only £2 so it's no big deal.

Overall, the SATA option was about £2 more than the ATA133 option, so why not?

Thanks again for your insights,

Cobra

PS - Where have you been hiding, mujahid7ia? Why not drop in in the OT forum?

[Madz]

You have an Asus A7N8X? I think it's very similar to my A7V8X (other'n chipset). Mine has an onboard Promise Fasttrack 376 SATA/RAID. I assume yours has a similar onboard and you're using that to hookup your SATA drive? I think you first need to hit F10 or something (I forget now) to enter the setup utility in the Promise BIOS (it'll say so as it loads before the system BIOS). Afterwhich, copy the drivers for that controller from the mobo driver CD to a floppy, boot XP, hit F6 when prompted, then load the floppy when it asks if you need to load an additional SCSI/RAID drivers. XP will definately need to see the controller, and therefore the drive, in order to do a format & install (assuming you're using it as the boot drive). Then after XP is fully loaded & running, go into the CMOS boot section and set something like SCSI/Network as the first boot device.