Win. 7 Fresh install - No S-ATA Driver?
 

General Information :
Disk Controller : Intel 82801EB (ICH5) SATA I/O Controller

Drive Controller Features :
Mode : IDE <----
AHCI : No

Bit confused? I know XP and lower OS's needed to have floppy disks inserted during setup for S-ATA support but didn't figure Win. 7 would? It was just installed but I noticed my 500GB WD S-ATA II HDD is running - UDMA 6 (ATA-133) ???

Specs:
Pentium 4 3.2GHz 'E'
MSI 865PE Neo2-P
WD 500 S-ATA II HDD
Pioneer S-ATA DVD/RW
2GB DDR400
XFX Radeon HD4650 1GB AGP

BIOS:
On-Chip ATA(s) Operate Mode - Native Mode
ATA Configuration - S-ATA Only
S-ATA Keep Enabled - Yes
P-ATA Keep Enabled - No
S-ATA Ports Definition - P0-1st / P1 2nd
Configure S-ATA as RAID - No

Apparently default chipset drivers for you motherboard aren't a part of Windows 7's library. You will need to find the sata drivers and put them on a floppy or a USB stick.

There's another problem..... can't find them. I've tried several Intel Chipset Drivers and they all say my Chipset isn't supported. ?? I ran the Intel Chipset Utility and it didn't even recognize my board or chipset. :confused:

x64 or 32 bit Windows?

This is what Intel has for you chipset. http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...18494&lang=eng

It is set to IDE mode in the BIOS, it has nothing to do with Windows.

IDE Mode, ACHI/SATA, and RAID modes are all configured in the BIOS. It doesn't matter what driver you try to install, it will always say IDE mode unless you change it in the BIOS, and changing it after installing Windows is not recommended.

Basically, what is happing, is that your motherboard is masking the SATA controller as an IDE controller, and hence the drives show up as IDE drive. Early SATA controllers didn't do this, and hence needed special drivers during the OS install as you've mentioned. IDE mode was quickly implemented to eliminate the need for special drivers to be loaded during the OS install.

I noticed that too? Why do I have SATA ports if the BIOS only see's it as IDE-0 ? I don't have an option to change it in the BIOS to change it to SATA? :banghead:

I've tried that. It does nothing.....

So am I stuck just installing the OS and leaving it as is? Benchmarking the HDD only shows 126.9MB/s compaired to SATA-150MB/s

126.9mb is good and very normal.

Should I put the Jumper to 150mb? I noticed there is no jumper on the drive.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS

I'll try it out. Thanks. :D

So to sum it up... the only speed I will achieve via the ICH5 chipset is ATA/133 (UDMA Mode 6) ? There is nothing in the BIOS that will change the way the HDD is installed other than on an IDE. It shows up on boot IDE-0. This is with the HDD and DVD/RW both running off the SATA connectors on the board with SATA cables. Is this correct?

As far as installing the jumper it didn't change performance. Is this just an over glorified (SATA) description as far as this MB is concerned?

Hard Drives don't actually come close to the 150MB/s SATA provides, so no matter what you won't see a performance improvement. Not even 10,000RPM Raptors come close to 150MB/s.

What are you using to benchmark the drive? 126.9MB/s seems WAY high for an older hard drive, unless it is the burst speed, which is useless. You want to make sure you are looking at sustained speeds.

Sustained speed and or Average speed rate of the drive is roughly 60MB/s. Burst speed can go as high as 129.6MB/s. I'm using HD Tune Pro 4.00 to run tests on the drive. It's just annoying seeing UDMA MODE 6 (ATA-133). :rolleyes:

AHCI or RAID is what the BIOS would need set to. It likely won't list SATA as a mode.

Well AHCI isn't available or I'm not seeing it. If I set it to raid it blue screens and restarts in repair mode.

That's normal. It was installed in IDE mode, so windows expects the boot drive to be IDE. It does not like going from IDE to AHCI or RAID on the boot drive. The only way to fix it is a clean install.

So if I were to clean install again, how do I set up the bios? I don't have a floppy and I don't believe Win. 7 asks anyway? If I set up the bios as raid then what do I select?

win 7 doesn't need the floppy, that was an XP thing.

set the BIOS to raid/AHCI, and hit the 'load driver' button when choosing what partition to install 7 to (might have to hit the advanced options button first)

vista and 7 can read from CD, floppy, USB drives, whatever - just make sure the drivers are there (and not zipped or anything) and you're good to go.


since there are no mechanical drives that can do 133MB/s (sustained), it really makes no speed difference if its in IDE mode or not. RAID/AHCI only matters so that you get hotswap and NCQ support.

So with it installed in Native Mode but "Raid" not enabled (which is the ONLY option) I have NO AHCI option in the BIOS, it makes no difference then installing it with RAID enabled and having the ICH5 SATA drivers installed rather than IDE ATA drivers?

As of now I have NO SATA drivers in the device manager listed at all even though SATA is enabled in the BIOS but RAID is not. It's all IDE ATA.

in IDE compatibility mode, they show as IDE drives/controllers. Thats why you bluescreen if you change it on the OS drive without reinstalling windows (it tries to run IDE drivers on a SATA controller)


after actually looking properly at your first post, its only ICH5 - that things SATA I and therefore has no AHCI mode (which came out later)

Your SATA controller is effectively IDE with a sata adapter on top

so an over glorified SATA port/s basically as I listed earlier. ? . :(

MB Brand : MSI
MB Model : MS-6728
NB : Intel i865P/PE/G/i848P rev A2
SB : Intel 82801EB (ICH5) rev 02 :banghead: :shadedshu

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/aboard,617-10.html


there we go


its SATA 150 on the PCI bus - capped at 133MB/s due to PCI

D'OH!!!! :banghead:

oh, if you havent already - install the intel matrix storage manager

it wont help your PCI problem, but it may at least list them as SATA and not IDE