New to SATA - Config Help please

Hi,

I'm installing an Asus motherboard able to handle 6 sata devices.
I have 2-80 gig HDs for which I have a hd rack and tray:
1 for web developing
1 for gaming
I also have 1-160 gig for storage/slave.

I have 2 sata dvd burners.

You know how with IDE you could just pop in a drive, it would see it, you booted from the dvd/cd drive to format it and then you're off.
Can I do it this way with SATA ?

thanks

yes it can be down with sata the same way and no more worrying about master/slave setups too

The details vary depending upon the motherboard. For example I have a ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard.

To use SATA for the first time I had to:

* Enable SATA on the motherboard by setting a jumper on it

* Install the driver for the SATA controller

Once done the SATA controller showed up in the Device Manager as:

- SCSI and RAID controllers
<> Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATA Raid Controller

When I plugged in a Seagate SATA disk drive it showed up with the other drives in the Device Manager:

- Disk drives
[] Maxtor 6L200RO
[] Maxtor 7Y250P0
[] ST330062 OAS SCSI Disk Device

Yeah I have the A7N8X board, great board, that thing is like 5 years old.

The mobo in question I just bought it from newegg in Feb. It is sata ready and it's sata 2.

Although I did just read that I might have an issue with the drivers. Hope not., hope it goes easy. Theres a good possibility it will.

When I first boot-up, into the BIOS I go like you say.

I'm not going to fire it up until tomorrow when my UPS battery gets here. We have constant spiking electric. The power lines here in this one horse town are 60 or 70 years old. No dsl either.

Thanks for your posts

BTW: Do I need jumpers on the HDs ?

Both motherboards I've used have worked with a SATA drive without any configuration the P4P800 SE and the M2N-SLI Deluxe. I just plugged them in

I was thinking it should go like that.

Great again! I have the M2N-E. I was looking at the M2N-SLI. Bought 1 SLI ready video card and the sli ready Antec Neo/550 in prep to maybe get that board.

Well I am trying to get a SATA HD to work too, by that I mean visible alongside the other main one.

I can see it in the BIOS, as master 4, it doesn't show any problems in the device manager, I wonder if I have skipped anything, like a jumper on the motherboard?

state your hard drive setup

I added a SATA seagate barracuda 500gb to my existing IDE seagate barracuda 200gb.

As for the drivers, I clicked on the update button and all looked good.

The only place where I don't see the 2nd HD is in My Computer, where only the old one shows, with 2 partitions.

Power is definitely on, as the HD spins.

The MB is a A7V8Z-LA, you can see it here .

I used the SATA2 slot for the new SATA HD.

Thanks!

I've been offline for a couple days building. I'm using my new rig now. Everything was recognized and all is well. Setting-up software. Plugged in my old ide hd that was holding My Docs and it works.

Right now a Western Digital 80 gig sata in a HD rack w/ O.S.

WD 80 gig ide drive as storage

Latter I will add a 160 gig sata for storage.
I have another WD sata 80 gig sitting in a tray for that rack.