HD on SATA controller: Accessable without special drivers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe L
  • Start date Start date
J

Joe L

I have an Abit KT7A-Raid now but am soon to upgrade to an A7N8X Deluxe V2.
Though I never had a raid setup on the old moboard I did have my hard drives
plugged into the Highpoint raid controler as "regular drives" in order to
free up the VIA controller for other things.

This worked out very well. Access to the drives on the Highpoint controller
was no different than were they on the regular IDE controller. There was no
problem even when there were zero Highpoint drivers anywhere in the system,
such as when installing Win 98se on a wiped slick drive from a DOS startup
floppy (neither DOS nor 98SE have the slightest idea what a Raid controller
is). Or working in DOS (Fdisk, old DOS games, etc) after booting from a DOS
floppy.

I would like to do the same thing on the new A7N8X Deluxe, connect the old
drives to the SATA controller. I know I will need an SATA to IDE adaptor for
my present drives to plug into the SATA controller but, asside from that,
will I be able to access the drives without any special drivers just as I
would were the drives plugged into the IDE controllers?

From some posts I have read here in the NG I get the impression that any
drives plugged into the SATA controller (with or without the SATA-IDE
adaptor) cannot be accessed at all for any purpose unless a driver is first
installed somwthere. For all practical purposes, without that driver,
neither the SATA controller nor any hard drives connected to it even
"exist".

True?
 
Joe said:
I have an Abit KT7A-Raid now but am soon to upgrade to an A7N8X Deluxe V2.
Though I never had a raid setup on the old moboard I did have my hard
drives plugged into the Highpoint raid controler as "regular drives" in
order to free up the VIA controller for other things.

This worked out very well. Access to the drives on the Highpoint
controller was no different than were they on the regular IDE controller.
There was no problem even when there were zero Highpoint drivers anywhere
in the system, such as when installing Win 98se on a wiped slick drive
from a DOS startup floppy (neither DOS nor 98SE have the slightest idea
what a Raid controller is). Or working in DOS (Fdisk, old DOS games, etc)
after booting from a DOS floppy.

I would like to do the same thing on the new A7N8X Deluxe, connect the old
drives to the SATA controller. I know I will need an SATA to IDE adaptor
for my present drives to plug into the SATA controller but, asside from
that, will I be able to access the drives without any special drivers
just as I would were the drives plugged into the IDE controllers?

From some posts I have read here in the NG I get the impression that any
drives plugged into the SATA controller (with or without the SATA-IDE
adaptor) cannot be accessed at all for any purpose unless a driver is
first installed somwthere. For all practical purposes, without that
driver, neither the SATA controller nor any hard drives connected to it
even "exist".
Click to expand...

At the end of the day, you will require A driver, so what does it matter
which one?

I was under the impression that you will require the driver, some poeple
have said otherwise.

The SATA drive on my Win2K / A7N8X system look like they are SCSI. I think
I have managed to see the HD from DOS though. I'll let you know next time I
reboot.

Ben
 
Ben Pope said:
At the end of the day, you will require A driver, so what does it matter
which one?
Click to expand...

It does, of course, require the proper driver to work well, what I was
wondering is if it required a driver to work at all.

With the hard drives connected to my present Highpoint Raid controler and
with nothing but a slick drive and a regular Win 98se startup floppy. I can
access the hard drive from DOS, write zeros the the drive (which I do once
in a while) FDISK it, format it, install Win 98se all without a Highpoint
driver anywhere on the system.
I was under the impression that you will require the driver, some poeple
have said otherwise.

The SATA drive on my Win2K / A7N8X system look like they are SCSI. I think
I have managed to see the HD from DOS though. I'll let you know next time I
reboot.
Click to expand...

The Highpoint Raid controller also emulates SCSI but only after the proper
drivers are installed. Without the drivers Windows calls it "Unknown Mass
Storage Device" but it works fine for basic tasks and it is nice to be able
do some things without having to bother about installing drivers before you
can access the hard drive.

I once reformatted my drive then realized that every Highpoint driver I had
was on the drive I just formatted. Since I didnt need the drivers to access
the drive this was no big thing. I just continued the reformat/reinstall as
planed and downloaded the driver later when the OS was installed and things
set up. I like this..
 
For Win9x & DOS: no, you shouldn't require a driver to get it to work,
though your performance will most likely be better if you used it. Win9x
should just see it as a generic controller. For Windows NT/2000/XP,
however, you will need the SATA driver; they're just fussy that way. :-)

However, *all* versions of Windows don't like it when you try to move them
to a different MB; maybe it'll work, but maybe you'll have to reinstall
Windows from scratch. [I generally found Win9x a bit less fussy than the NT
platform, but maybe that was just my luck.] In which case, why not install
the SATA driver while you're at it for best performance?

Also, what exactly is the advantage to *not* using a SATA driver? You'd
still be able to access the drive from DOS, regardless of what driver(s) you
use in Windows. [Well, not if you format your drive with NTFS, but you'd
only do that for one of the NT-based OSs - which, again, would require you
to use the SATA driver, so the point becomes moot.]

For that matter, what will you be using your onboard IDE controller for?
 
William Barnes said:
For Win9x & DOS: no, you shouldn't require a driver to get it to work,
though your performance will most likely be better if you used it. Win9x
should just see it as a generic controller. For Windows NT/2000/XP,
however, you will need the SATA driver; they're just fussy that way. :-)

However, *all* versions of Windows don't like it when you try to move them
to a different MB; maybe it'll work, but maybe you'll have to reinstall
Windows from scratch. [I generally found Win9x a bit less fussy than the NT
platform, but maybe that was just my luck.] In which case, why not install
the SATA driver while you're at it for best performance?
Click to expand...

It was my intention of wiping the drives slick before changing moboards that
prompted my question. For me reformating is at worst only a moderate
pain-in-the-butt so I do it several times a year anyway.
Also, what exactly is the advantage to *not* using a SATA driver? You'd
still be able to access the drive from DOS, regardless of what driver(s) you
use in Windows. [Well, not if you format your drive with NTFS, but you'd
only do that for one of the NT-based OSs - which, again, would require you
to use the SATA driver, so the point becomes moot.]
Click to expand...

There is no advantage in not using a driver; the advantage lies in not
having to use a driver like a key that *must* be inserted to unlock the HD.
I want the ability strictly for convenience and peace of mind. Convenience
because I have always just installed the OS first and all drivers after.
Peace of mind because not needing a driver just to get in the HD is better
than needing a driver. Just one less place where "Murphy" can slip in and
screw things up.
For that matter, what will you be using your onboard IDE controller for?
Click to expand...

So far just a couple of CDR/Ws. But having the ability free up resources by
moving all hard drives off the IDE controler is better than not being able
to free up the resources. Like empty drive bays they may serve no purpose
now but it is nice to know they are there.
 
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