Enabling SATA

[shiato storm]

right, just wondering how to enable SATA on my system (should be on the side there <- )
I currently have two ata drives but the 40gb one is full (digital photography!) so need new storage without fussing about with a re-install of windows. is there something I need to know when installing sata? if an a: drive is involved then I'll need to find one from somewhere...

[-ChEM-]

you will need to enable the controller in the bios... if its enabled you should get some kind of notification on startup like

Super 1234 Controller 23432-5264578-768
(C) 1981 Bios 0.00.01a
Press F12 to enter setup

then you need a windows driver for the controller that you can download

you only need a floppy drive if you want to install a fresh windows onto that drive (so you windows setup can see the drives on that controller)... but from your setup now you could just image your windows drive onto the new one using backup software so you dont have to do a complete reinstall anyway)

[FatalSaviour]

If you're after a fresh re-install anyway, you may want to just slipstream your Windows XP CD, to include latest updates/hotfixes/any drivers needs.
nlite is a really useful program for this, and you can use RyanVM's hotfix packages to simplify those.

HTH a little

[shiato storm]

cool cheers for info

[shiato storm]

ah, just one thing - of the types of SATA, 150 and 300. they are backwards compatible arent they. I mean, if I got a 300SATA it would work with my mothoboard which was made prior to 300SATA release...

[BUFF]

should do.
& if you are installing your new drive purely for storage you shouldn't need any drivers on that mobo as nF3 has native SATA for single drives iirc.

[Jinx]

BUFF is quite correct.......NF3 has the controller built into the chipset, and as such requires no drivers at all, and hence, no a: drive requirement.....

[shiato storm]

woohoo...right then - ordering right now! cheers peeps

[Jinx]

The only other thing, is once you have the drive installed, it probably won't appear in your 'My Computer' screen....you'll have to go into the Logical Disk Manager to assign it a drive letter........(just in case you didn't know all that already, so if you do, ignore me)