Hi there,

I have an ABIT motherboard (AS8), and a SATA drive, but I cannot get the drive to run in SATA mode, the BIOS SATA properties report as "combined mode" and runs the drive @ ATA100/LBA.

The SATA drive is plugged into the SATA connector1 the only other thing I have is a DVD burner which is on IDE2. So IDE1 is FREE so is SATA2 connector.

The BIOS is setting the SATA as IDE1 & the DVDburner as IDE2. But if I set the BIOS SATA options to RAID, it doesnt recognise the drive neither does XP.

Do I have to have 2xSATA drives to actually use SATA!!? do I have to buy more :hmm:

Hope you can shed some light on this for me.

Blipop.

I dont quite understand.

You assume that RAID = SATA?
First off, RAID can only be used if you have at least 2 HDs either both on IDE or both on SATA, not one on SATA, one IDE. Your DVD-ROM doesnt count as a HD in RAID, so you can leave it on IDE, I doubt there are SATA CD/DVD-ROMs anyway. But you cant have RAID with just one HD.

SATA is the bus system.
RAID is how the system handles the drives. You can have IDE RAID OR SATA RAID.

Someone want to explain him what RAID exactly is?

he did not ask about raid ....

but as I understand him right ....
the one SATA disk you have connected is recognised by your computer right ?
what you complain about is the thing displayed right ?

1. SATA had no different modes up to now if you connect your SATA disk to the SATA port and it is working it is totally equal what is show ... it does work
maybe the BIOS is just displaying BS
I would boot into windows ... install the intel chipset driver if not already done and watch out for details there ... as long as the disk works you do not need to complain about some false ATA100 messages
and even if it would run on ATA100 it will surely make no difference since no actual disk can even beat ATA100

if you are still unsure you can do some screenshots and show them

"But if I set the BIOS SATA options to RAID, it doesnt recognise the drive neither does XP."

Indeed, indeed.

sure because this setting is wrong ... you need 2 disks to go for raid as you said ... but he wonders why the non-raid option does display BS
which is only BIOS / software related and does not affect the system

Thanks for the replies, and yes I fully understand how raid works, what Im aking is why isnt my SATA drive running as SATA.

The BIOS autodetects the setup and as it stands right now the BIOS says the SATA is running in legacy PATA mode IDE1 (ATA100 & LBA). On Enhanced mode it sets the drive as IDE3.

From my understanding of this the drive will ONLY work in true SATA mode (ATA150) if I have two identical drives. My board only supports RAID as SATA in that case then?..yes?

Cheers

nope
there is no Raid only setup


raid and sata are 2 totally independend things
if you really have connected your device to the sata slot it is SATA
stop worring about the things displayed
there is no "false sata mode" its just a false display
try updating the BIOS / software and hope that will fix it ... but Sata remains Sata equal what is shown