XP Pro - Asus Mobo - ATAIDE config for legacy compatible and native mode OSes ???

[Web Gecko]

Howdy

Just built a new system using the Asus P4P800S,
2.4 GHZ Celeron, 256MB DDR400, 40GB WD 7200 rpm HDD with 8MB cache, XP Pro etc etc..

Seems to be working fine but I have a question about the setup\BIOS config for the IDE channels. Under Win 98, Me, NT4, MSDOS and Linux there is a setting which requires
"compatible" mode for legacy OSes which these are.
If you use Win2K or XP Pro the setting should be native mode
for the PATA IDE channels ( not using the SATA ports yet).

There is no other info on how these settings impact the system in the mobo manual.

I think I may have messed up and loaded the HDD with the
IDE config setting as "compatible" instead of "native"
for XP usage.

Does anyone know about these modes ( maybe familiar with
Asus P4P800S ?) and what impact this could have on the operation of the IDE devices on this system. I understand that
with legacy OSes you can have 4 IDE devices on 2 channels
and no access to the SATA ports OR any 1 of the 2 IDE channels ( 2 devices ) and up to 2 SATA drives ( 4 drives again ). With native OSes like 2K and XP you get both IDE channels and both SATA ports ( 6 drives ).

Apart from that I don't know how these IDE modes affect operation in terms of performance or otherwise.
The system seems to run fine\well. I tried changeing the setting back to "native" mode after the install but XP seemed to choke and took forever to load. So I changed back to compatible and things are speedy again.

Obviously those settings affect the IDE channels significantly.
Just like to know how and what is changed ( also maybe the why ).

Anyone know about this stuff ???
Any ideas welcome.

Thanks

cheers

Web Gecko

?8O)}

[KHT]

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