One of my computers has a Asus P5W Dh Deluxe Motherboard. It has a SATA Raptor HDD on which Windows XP Professional has been installed. It has another SATA Disk and also a IDE hard disk. I have come to know recently that SATA Drive performs better .i.e if it is on the AHCI(Advanced Host Controller Interface). An another name for it is the SATA mode. This is because then it supports NCQ (Native Command Queuing) and Hot Plug. I checked whether my Windows XP has been installed on the AHCI mode but it was not.
I think since the operating system Windows XP has been installed it is difficult to change it to the AHCI/Raid mode. Can an expert tell me whether it can be changed to the AHCI or raid mode now?
I tried to do a Window repair. I went into the bios of the motherboard and changed the configuration of the SATA to the AHCI mode. I made two floppies one for the Intel ICH7R and one for the J Micron by copying from the motherboard CD. I pressed F6 and tried to to install/repair Windows XP. Files are copied from the floppy successfully. However in the AHCI mode, in both the ICH 7R configuration and the J micron configuration, Windows could not detect any SATA hard drive. It could only detect the IDE Drive if it is attached to the computer.Then I tried the raid mode but still Windows could not detect any SATA Drive. I am primarily interested in installing SATA in the AHCI mode using the ICH 7R configuration not the J Micron configuration.
My raptor on which the Windows XP is installed is on SATA 1, the other SATA drive is either on SATA 2 or 3. I do not understand why Windows does not detect any SATA Drive.
The motherboard installation CD manual says that when prompted to select the SCSI adaptor to install make sure you select Intel (R) 82801 GH/GM Raid Controller (desktop ICH 7R/DH) but the floppy after the F6 shows Intel (R) ICH8R/DO/DH SATA Raid Controller (Desktop ICH8R) or the Intel (R) ICH8R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH8R). It also shows the Raid & AHCI Controllers for the SERVER/Workstation ESB2.
Is it true that if I install the raid mode it will also contain the AHCI mode .i.e. the AHCI mode is a subset of the raid mode. Then I will have the option of adding a raid hdd configuration later on when ever the need arose.
This motherboard is quite a popular & reknowed motherboard. Some expert must be knowing or even must have installed SATA disks using either the AHCI or the raid mode. Experts will not normally install a SATA drive using the IDE Mode. I shall be grateful if some help is given to me in this connection.
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