SATA Adapter Wierdness

  • Thread starter Thread starter John O
  • Start date Start date
J

John O

I'm trying to use a couple different SATA adapters--those plug-in modules
that convert EIDE drives to SATA--in an educational setting. I need to show
the adapter working, then remove it.

What's apparently happening is Win XP Pro SP-2 doesn't like to go from SATA
to PATA. IOW, I can install the adapter but I can't remove it. If I remove
the adapter and go back to PATA (and make the required BIOS changes) XP blue
screens right as the splash screen starts, and it reboots immediately. (have
to watch close to see it all). Through a lot of experimenting over the last
couple days, I've proven the problem is tied to XP and maybe the mobo BIOS
settings.

Win 2k doesn't care...I can install the adapter, remove it, it works both
ways with no complaints.

Any ideas why XP cares about the cabling method to a HDD?

FWIW, MSI 848P Neo-V mobo, various HDDs.

-John O
 
Could be that when you swap out the adapter and switch from SATA to PATA XP
'thinks' you're doing something illegal - like trying to bootleg the
installed setup to a different system.
 
Could be that when you swap out the adapter and switch from SATA to PATA
XP 'thinks' you're doing something illegal - like trying to bootleg the
installed setup to a different system.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. But would that blue screen and reboot? If I could catch
the error code it would be helpful. Would that be in one of the logs
somewhere?

FWIW, this is a site license version of XP...no activation needed.

-John O
 
My guess would be that XP has an easier time understanding an coping with
the change to SATA than the change back when it has to find the drive it's
supposed to boot from. You're probably getting the same sort of error that
people get when they move a hard drive to a motherboard with a different IDE
controller, but in your case, it's the same board but still a different IDE
controller.

You might be best off trying this with a secondary drive rather than the
boot drive.

Of course, this is just a guess.
 
Hi John,

have you tried to press F8 during the bootup? There you should get the
option to "disable automatic reboot if encountering a problem" (or
someting in that direction) --> That should enable you to read the
actuall error message.
You can permanently deactivate this reboot "feature" in "My Computer"
--> "Advanced" --> "Startup and recovery".

Hope that helps to identify your problem.
Regards,

Stefan
 
Back
Top