SATA and Operating system question

[JonP]

OK, I think is going to classified as a dumb question, but I'm wondering if there is anything particular I would need to know about installing a new SATA drive on a Windows 98SE system.

I have a new ASUS A7N8X Deluxe mainboard with an onboard SATA controller just looking for a Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA drive.

I'm just wondering if there are any issues about using SATA when installing and / or subsequently using Windows 98SE? I'm just thinking about how the drive is going to be recognised by the system when installing Windows, or is SATA hardware completely transparent in this respect?

[CrowdAds]

[Mr Steveo]

Thats not a dumb question at all! In fact its rather insightful seeing as how the answer varies depending on the motherboard platform and operating system.


For an AMD/nForce2 setup, heres the deal:

A SATA hard drive (with no SATA-PATA adapter) would run off of an onboard SATA controller chip. You probably have a Silicon Image or Promise SATA chip. When you attach a HDD to this chip in a nonRAID config, the disk will be seen as being attached to a SCSI/RAID chip by WIndows.

The first thing you will want to do is find the owners manual for your mobo and see what steps are involved to enable the chip in nonRAID mode from your BIOS. Sometimes this is a simple BIOS setting. And with some chips you dont do anything at all in the BIOS, you just attach the drives. Either way, just follow the intructions for enabling non RAID SATA mode.

Once youve done this, shut down the computer and add the HDD.

Then once everything is hooked up, boot up into WIndows. When WIndows says its found new hardware, load the Silicon Image or Promise nonRAID drivers provided by your motherboard manufacturer. All done. May require a reboot.

*For anyone else reading this there would be different steps to take if this was adding a drive prior to installing WIndows 2000/XP/2003. But the above steps should be fine for Win98)

In sum, no with your motherobard and OS, SATA is not recognzied transparently with existing Windows drivers. You need to supply the SATA chip drivers so that the OS sees the drive as being part of an add in SCSI/RAID controller)

===========================================

For Intel 865P/865PE/875P setup heres the deal:

Now if you have an Intel Canterwood or Springdale chipset mobo, then everything changes. With the new Intel motherobards, SATA is provided by the Southbridge chip. And if nonRAID SATA drives are going to be used, then in this case, SATA drives ARE supported transparently by the OS drivers.

But wait theres one more catch. With a Canterwood or Springdale, at the hardware level you would have a total of four possible IDE/PATA/ATAPI drives and two SATA drives for a total of six drives. Unfortunately Windows 98/98SE can only support a total of four native drives. In such a case you would go into your BIOS and configure the motherboard for "Legacy IDE Mode."

In legacy IDE mode you can have a total of four drives in any configuration between PATA and SATA, but you cant use all six. To use all six natively you need an OS like Windows XP and you need to set the motherboard BIOS in "Enhanced IDE mode" In enhanced IDE Mode under Windows XP, SATA drives attached to the Intel boards Southbridge SATA connectors would be seen transparently as IDE drives and would use regular WIndows drivers.

Great question!

HTH

[Rafael]

Not sure if it will apply to you, but....

My CUSL2 gave me some problems with the controller card.
I have the Sii card, and my system would not even see it at boot-up until I found the right slot and IRQ combo. Windows saw it from the start, but Bios just wasnt happy "any" old config.

No other problems, but I am using XP, not 98. No bios settings other than the IRQ and setting it as a boot device.

$
RAF

[Mr Steveo]

Originally posted by Rafael
Not sure if it will apply to you, but....

My CUSL2 gave me some problems with the controller card.
I have the Sii card, and my system would not even see it at boot-up until I found the right slot and IRQ combo. Windows saw it from the start, but Bios just wasnt happy "any" old config.

No other problems, but I am using XP, not 98. No bios settings other than the IRQ and setting it as a boot device.

$
RAF

Good point. An add in PCI HDD controller card is another possible config.

[Rafael]

Originally posted by Mr Steveo
Good point. An add in PCI HDD controller card is another possible config.

It didnt register in my mind that JonP already has an onboard controller. Doh!

[JonP]

Mr. Steveo,

Many thanks for that detailed reply I'm book marking it for when I get the drive. Yes, my board has the Silicon Image 3112A controller, which is supposed to be excellent. So it really seems a waste to have this great mobo with this great feature and put it to waste. Even the 36GB Raptor (big enough for me) is only $251 Australian, which is actually amazingly reasonable considering the speed and access times (the access times and relatively low CPU usage of Silicon Image + SATA is what I want it for).

But from what you tell me, I would still be able to format this hard drive so long as I have configured the SATA controller properly on the mobo / BIOS.

So, in a practical sense, say I am loading Win98 Lite? First I set the jumpers on the mobo to enable SATA non-raid, then enable SATA in the BIOS (the only HD in the system being the new SATA Raptor). Then I can boot from a DOS floppy and load the Windows 98 Lite executable. Then the machine will still allow me to transfer all the files from my Win 98 CD to my Raptor hard drive, even without the drivers. Finally, when Windows asks for the drivers, I'll do as you instructed.

I guess my question arose from the confusion of how on earth does one load any files onto a SATA hard drive when there are no drivers for the SATA controller - at least not until you have actually loaded Windows. It's something puny little mind has trouble grappling with. I guess there is something in the SATA and hard drive logic that enables this process to occur even though the actual windows drivers haven't been loaded yet. I guess the analogy must be like what happens when you install a graphics adaptor - you can still see what is happening on the screen even before you load the required drivers.

[Mr Steveo]

Arrrgh you stumped me

I havent had any expereince using RAID prior to 2001. ANd back then I was using WIndows 2000. WIth 2000/XP/2003 you can load RAID SATA drivers before the OS isntallation begins.

But with WIndows 98 and loading the OS onto an SATA/RAID controller, Im plumb stumped. Im sure its possible, I jsut dont know how.

I did have a OEM computer ages ago with a PCI ATA card and WIndows Me. On that computer Win Me recognized the drive long enough to get Windows isntalled and then install the PCI card drivers after the OS was isntalled. It might work that way in your scenario but Im not certain.




Can anyone else around here good with WIndows 98SE help Jon out with installing Windows to a Silicon Image SATA chip?

[JonP]

The driver download from the Silicon Image website has this to say:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8) Windows 98SE and Windows ME Fresh Installation Instructions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow the instructions in this section if you are performing a new
installation of Windows 98SE/ME and you wish to boot from a device attached
to the SiI 3x12 SATALink controller.

You may start up the Windows 98SE/ME installation from CD. If either your
Windows 98SE/ME CD or CD-ROM drive is not bootable, your can start up with
floppy diskettes.

1. Power off the system. Insert the SiI 3x12 SATALink controller into an
available PCI slot. Connect serial ATA cable(s) between the SiI 3x12
controller and the serial ATA device(s). Power up the system.

2. Put your Windows 98SE/ME CD into the CD-ROM/DVD drive, and
the Windows 98SE/ME boot diskette in the floppy drive if your
system cannot boot from the CD.

3. Follow the normal Windows 98SE/ME setup instructions to select your choice
for partition and file system.

4. Wait until Windows 98SE/ME finishes installing devices, regional
settings, networking settings, components, and final set of
tasks, reboot the system.

5. After the system reboots, right click on 'My Computer' and select
'Properties'. From 'System Properties' , select 'Device Manager', right
click on the '?PCI Mass Storage controller' and select 'Properties' from
the context menu.

6. Click 'Driver', 'Update Driver' and select 'Automatic search for a better
driver[Recommended]'. Insert the diskette labeled 'Silicon Image SiI 3x12
SATALink Driver Installation Disk' into floppy drive. Click 'Next' and
complete the driver installation.

7. System will go through the enumeration process and install the driver.
At the end of the process, click 'Yes' to reboot your system.

8. See instructions in section 11 to verify controller was installed
correctly.


The way I interpret this, it should work the way you originally said, I guess