Sata PCI Card Problem
 

I recently added a "COMBO" PCI card to my Intel 845BG board.
Card provides SATA, USB 2.0, & FIREWIRE ports.
Windows XP was already installed.
All drivers that came with card were loaded.
I then added 120GB SAMSUNG SATA drive.

Two issues:
1. Drive not recognized in BIOS set-up, but shows up in the computer hardware administrative menu . Drive was formatted and partioned. Now shows up in My Computer, but still absent from BIOS set-up.
SATA Drive also appears in device menu and SATA controller also appears in device menu. No yellow flags!

2. Drive is usable and works fine, but is functioning at standard IDE performances and does not show up in BIOS set-up.. It appears drive may not be on SATA channel?
Any suggestions, inputs? Thanks!

Re: Sata PCI Card Problem
 

As far as I know, a PCI add-on card does not "integrate" itself with your BIOS, so the BIOS will not recognise drives attached to it during POST (only drives plugged into controllers integrated into the motherboard).

What are you using to gauge the drive's performance? If you're transferring data between drives, note that the speeds will be limited by the slowest drive! Also, the PCI controller has to share the PCI-bus bandwidth with however many other cards are installed.

Re: Sata PCI Card Problem
 

Thanks for the response COCONUT MONKEY!.

You raise a couple of great issues:

1. What advantage is there then in adding a SATA drive to a MOB that doesn't have NATIVE SATA functionality? It sounds like a waste of money if the SATA DRIVE'S performance is going to be no better than the performance of the ATA HD on the IDE bus??

2.Without accessability to the SATA drive from the BIOS SETUP, how does one integrate it into the BOOT SEQUENCE?

Thanks again for the input!

Re: Sata PCI Card Problem
 

Well, current SATA1 hard drives aren't that much faster than PATA drives, so performance isn't really an issue no matter what kind of controller you have. The main drawcards are smaller cables and no jumper nonsense to worry about. SATA2 is up and about though.There should be an option in your BIOS along the lines of "Boot from : Floppy/CD,DVD/HDD-0/Boot add-in card" which will enable your system to boot from drives attached to the PCI controller.

Re: Sata PCI Card Problem
 

Thanks Coconut Monkey!

I only wish my SATA experience was giving me at least equal performance with my PATA drive!

Re: Sata PCI Card Problem
 

What are you using to gauge performance?

Re: Sata PCI Card Problem
 

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