Re: Problems with 2nd Internal Hard DRive Installation

"JD" <JD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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JS wrote:
"JD" <JD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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JS wrote:
Snipped
The older PATA drives do have jumpers to define
which drive will be the Master and which will be the Slave.

You are correct in that there are no Master/Slave jumpers
for SATA drives. However if you install XP on a SATA drive
and then add a second SATA drive, the boot drive is defined
as the Master and the additional drive as the Slave.

Even the newer LGA1366 socket motherboards use the Master/Slave
terminoloy.
http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ex58-extreme_e.pdf

Are we in two different countries? I'm in the US but I notice
your link is to what appears to be a europe giga-byte web page.
Maybe that is why we're seeing two different things?

I installed XP to a SATA drive and I have a second SATA drive and
I'm not seeing that one is the Master and one is the Slave. Where
would I see that? In my bios? When I boot, what key do I hit to
get to my bios on my giga-byte mobo? I'm just curious here, not
trying to get into a pissing match.

--
JD..
The European link is the one I use as it is noticeably faster than
the US link.

I'm not familiar with your particular motherboard but usually
pressing the DEL key several times during the boot process
(Before the Windows logo is displayed) will get you into
the BIOS. Check Gigabytes web site for your motherboard
and download the manual.

Some Gigabyte motherboard BIOS hide the "Advanced" features
and I think when you are at the main page of the BIOS pressing
the F11 key will bring up additional BIOS settings.

I took a look at my BIOS this morning and you are correct, the IDE
channels are listed as 0 Master, 0 Slave, 2 Master (one SATA
drive), 2 Slave (second SATA drive), and 3 Master(one dvd-r drive)
and 3 Slave(second dvd-r drive).

On the mobo, the connections are marked as SATAII0, SATAII1,
SATAII2, ect., so where the SATA drive is plugged in determines
whether the mobo and BIOS see the drive as a Master or Slave?

--
JD..

To be honest I've always started out using SATA 0
for the first hard drive. I'm currently finishing up one
system build (Gigabyte MB) and when I get a chance
I'll add a second drive and then try switching them around
(the computer is off the bench currently).

I'm in the middle of benchmarking a bunch of hard drives
and beta testing (not Windows 7) and that's all I can say
about the beta. Hang in there I'll post back my findings when
I get my Gigabyte rig back on the bench.


OK.

That this could go on so long as a serious debate interested me so I did
a small amount of research. It does look like there is the possibility
of master/slave in a certain setup which ends up sans some of the SATA
capabilties:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
Well into the article:
------------------
SATA and PATA
At the device level, SATA and PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology
Attachment) devices remain completely incompatible-they cannot be
interconnected. At the application level, SATA devices can be specified
to look and act like PATA devices.[21] Many motherboards offer a "legacy
mode" option which makes SATA drives appear to the OS like PATA drives
on a standard controller. This eases OS installation by not requiring a
specific driver to be loaded during setup but sacrifices support for
some features of SATA and generally disables some of the boards' PATA or
SATA ports since the standard PATA controller interface only supports 4
drives. (Often which ports are disabled is configurable.)

The common heritage of the ATA command set has enabled the proliferation
of low-cost PATA to SATA bridge-chips. Bridge-chips were widely used on
PATA drives (before the completion of native SATA drives) as well as
standalone "dongles." When attached to a PATA drive, a device-side
dongle allows the PATA drive to function as an SATA drive. Host-side
dongles allow a motherboard PATA port to function as an SATA host port.

The market has produced powered enclosures for both PATA and SATA drives
which interface to the PC through USB, Firewire or eSATA, with the
restrictions noted above. PCI cards with an SATA connector exist that
allow SATA drives to connect to legacy systems without SATA connectors.

----------------------------

and at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk

it says:

ATA disks have typically had no problems with interleave or data rate,
due to their controller design, but many early models were incompatible
with each other and couldn't run with two devices on the same physical
cable in a master/slave setup. This was mostly remedied by the
mid-1990s, when ATA's specification was standardised and the details
began to be cleaned up, but still causes problems occasionally
(especially with CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks, and when mixing Ultra DMA and
non-UDMA devices).

Serial ATA does away with master/slave setups entirely, placing each
disk on its own channel (with its own set of I/O ports) instead.

FireWire/IEEE 1394 and USB(1.0/2.0) HDDs are external units containing
generally ATA or SCSI disks with ports on the back allowing very simple
and effective expansion and mobility.

Most FireWire/IEEE 1394 models are able to daisy-chain in order to
continue adding peripherals

without requiring additional ports on the computer itself. USB however,
is a point to point network and doesn't allow for daisy-chaining. USB
hubs are used to increase the number of available ports and are used for
devices that don't require charging since the current supplied by hubs
is typically lower than what's available from the built-in USB ports.

----------------------------

There are similar articles at many vendor's sites and around the 'net if
you want to look around. The first set of data above is the first time
I've ever seen the SATA devices with any kind of master/slave words used
with them. It appears to me it's a sub-optimal method and misses some
of the distinct advantages of SATA drives in general.

If you do get stuck in a less than optimal implementation of SATA, PCI
cards to create SATA ports are cheap nowadays but be careful to watch
the TYPE of SATA they work with compared to what you have. Terminology
is changing, too: e.g. what used to be called SATAII is now called
SATAIO, etc..

HTH,



Twayne`








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