IDE, AHCI, or RAID Mode for New PC

[djminus1]

Ok, I just got done building my PC and I am in the BIOS getting everything set up. I am using the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Board with a Seagate 500GB SATA HD, a Seagate 250 GB HD, and a PATA DVD/RW. I am a little confused on which mode I should set for the "Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode". Those options are IDE, AHCI, and RAID IDE. I will not be using RAID. The two disks will be independent.

What about the settings for the "SATA RAID/AHCI Mode". Those options are Disabled, AHCI, and RAID.

I notice that if I make any changes to the "Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode" to something other than IDE, my DVD/RW is no longer visiible on this page of the BIOS. Is this normal? I just need to know the best settings so I can boot XP from the DVD/RW, and the HDD's perform their best in a non-RAID configuration.

Thanks for the help, this is my first build.

[glc]

IDE mode will be the least hassles and will perform well.

[djminus1]

Yes...I am finding this out right now. I enabled AHCI mode and Windows asks for the drivers and cannot see the disks during the initial boot.

So I guess I go back and make these changes?

Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode: IDE AHCI RAID/IDE
SATA RAID/AHCI Mode: Disabled AHCI RAID

Would I be able to go back and switch to AHCI mode later. According to what I have read, you must reinstall Windows if this change is made. And can someone explain what I am losing by switching back to IDE mode? I understand that I lose the hot-swapping features (not a big deal to me), but what about native command queuing? How much performance would I lose? This computer is a DAW so the higher the performance I can get out of my disks, the better. Especially for my dedicated 250GB recording drive.

They are both Seagate Barracudas, the primary is 500Gb 32Mb 7200RPM and the dedicated recording disk is 250Gb 16Mb 7200RPM.

[XenaWP]

You lose NCQ in IDE mode. You lose SATA3 speed. You cannot switch among modes, you have to select the mode in BIOS prior to installing Windows and that's the mode you're stuck with until/unless you reinstall WinXP.

Would you notice the diff. between IDE mode and SATA/RAID/ACHI? I dunno. I couldn't see the point of buying a SATA drive and limiting it to UDMA5 speed.

I reinstalled WinXP selecting RAID mode for a single SATA drive. That's what Intel recommended.

[djminus1]

OK...well I am trying that but having MAJOR difficulties.

Windows is not recoginzing either of my hard drives during setup. I am assuming becasue the RAID driver is not installed. I downloaded the SATA2 RAID Install Driver from Gigabytes website. Its an .exe file and says for use with Windows setup.

When I begin to load windows, it says to push F6 if you need to load a RAID or SATA contoller driver. I push F6, and it does nothing. So I figure that it knows I pushed F6, and will prompt me for the driver at the end. Instead, I get to a screen where it says "windows does not recognize on or more of your mass storage devices" and asks for a setup file called txtsetup.oem? What is going on here? This is really frustrating. Can someone please help?

Relevant BIOS Settings used during setup.

SATA RAID/AHCI Mode: (1)Disabled (2)AHCI (3)RAID
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode: (1)Enabled (2)Disabled
Onboard SATA/IDE Device: (1)Enabled (2)Disabled
Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode: (1)IDE (2)AHCI (3)RAID/IDE

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by djminus1 When I begin to load windows, it says to push F6 if you need to load a RAID or SATA contoller driver. I push F6, and it does nothing. So I figure that it knows I pushed F6, and will prompt me for the driver at the end. Instead, I get to a screen where it says "windows does not recognize on or more of your mass storage devices" and asks for a setup file called txtsetup.oem? What is going on here? This is really frustrating. Can someone please help?

Where are the RAID drivers? Do you have them on a floppy disk? Do you even have a floppy drive?

Cricket

[djminus1]

I initially confused myself, but I got it figured out. Yes I have a floppy, and always will. For $5, its well worth the investment when it comes to hassles like this.

I had to create a driver disk using the mobo's driver CD. I just did it on another computer. The driver CD automatically creates the driver disk with all of the necessary files including the txtsetup.oem file that it was looking for. Windows has now found my drives listed as RAID arrays. I am formatting my OS drive as we speak and guessing I should be up and running in no time at all.