With the continued walking of various manufacturers SATA (serial interface) hard disk, support SATA's motherboard gradually spread, more and more people choose SATA hard drive to build their computer platform. However, because SATA hard drives are different from PATA (parallel interface) hard drives, there will be many differences in installation and use, so many users have encountered a lot of trouble after purchasing. This article will give a question and answer form to give a description of some common problems:
Q: I heard that the data cable and power cord interface of the SATA hard drive are different from the PATA hard drive. Do you need additional purchase when purchasing a SATA hard drive?
A: The motherboard that typically supports the SATA hard drive will come with a dedicated 7-core data cable and power cord, and the current new power supply basically provides a proprietary power supply interface for SATA devices. In addition, some SATA hard drives also have an additional D-PATA hard drive that uses a D-PATA hard drive that can be compatible with the old power supply. So usually we don't need additional purchase. If it is indeed, the SATA data line is approximately 10 yuan, and the power interface transfer is also up and down, and the computer market has sales, the quality is still.
Q: When the SATA hard drive is installed, do you have additional drivers to find a hard drive?
A: Not all, it is divided.
When installing the DOS / WIN98 / WINME system, the SATA hard drive does not need to load any drivers, which can be used as the PATA hard drive.
When installing the WIN2000 / XP / 2003 system, the SATA controller typically provided by the motherboard South Bridge chip (such as Intel ICH5 / R, VIA VT8237, etc.) is not in built-in or in the BIOS settings. You need to load the drive to find a hard disk; when RAID is turned on, you need to load the drive. The SATA controller of a third-party chip must be loaded.
Q: What should I do if I have a SATA driver?
A: At this stage, when the Win2000 / XP system installation disc load additional equipment is driven, only the floppy drive is read.
Although we can create a system-installation disc that integrates the required SATA-controlled drive, avoiding the trouble to load from the floppy drive. However, its production methods and settings are complex, and there is a certain understanding of the Windows system loading drive and the SATA driver files, and a slight error in the settings will cause the drive to load unsuccessful. So it is recommended to spend 50 yuan to buy a floppy drive to save trouble.
Q: Is the SATA hard disk drive with universal driver?
A: SATA driver does not refer to the drive of the hard disk, but refers to the SATA controller driver, divided into two types of third-party control chips in the Motherboard Chipset South Bridge, and additional third-party control chips. The drivers of each manufacturer cannot be universal.
Each manufacturer has a different design (see different in the BIOS settings), Intel, Via, SIS motherboard chip's SATA controller part is different, let alone other third-party controllers, so it is not too There may be unified drivers. The biggest hope is that Microsoft can directly integrate the SATA control driver of major manufacturers in the subsequent system installation CD, which is most convenient.
The general motherboard will come with a drive floppy disk, but there are only the motherboard drive disc, you need to copy the SATA driver file to the floppy disk. There is also a SATA drive floppy disk that needs to be made with a specific program of the motherboard disc, which requires the relevant instructions on the motherboard manual.
Q: Can SATA hard drives and PATA hard drives?
A: Of course, it is different from the SATA controller settings.
The key to the peaceful coexistence of SATA and PATA is that its occupied IDE channel location cannot conflict. Also note that the DOS / Win98 / WinMe system can only support 4 IDE devices, while Win2000 / XP / 2003 systems support 6 devices (Note: Third-party SATA controllers can break through this limit). About SATA occupies the settings of the IDE channel location, each manufacturer is different. Taking the Ich5 South Bridge in the Intel 865PE chipset: After entering the BIOS, select the IDE Configuration Menu under Main, you can choose two IDE operation modes under Onboard IDE Operate Mode: Compatible Mode and Enhanced Mode . Where Compatible Mode, it is understood that the SATA hard disk port is mapped to the corresponding port of the parallel ID channel, which is usually suitable for the DOS / WIN98 / WINME system; the SATA hard drive under Enhanced Mode will use a separate IDE channel, not conflict with the original PATA device, But only for Win2000 / XP / 2003 systems. Q: Is the SATA hard drive not supported FDISK and DM and other partition tools and GHOST software?
A: Of course support. There is a problem with this type of software, and there is a matter of ICH5 as the motherboard of the South Bridge, because these software is based on the DOS platform, so as mentioned above must be compatible mode, when set to enhance mode ( ENHANCED MODE This will cause failures that these software cannot be used.
In addition, when using 160GB and above the SATA hard drive, due to the earlier of FDISK (Win98 version) and DM, it is not possible to improve the 48bit addressing that supports greater than 137GB hard drives, it is possible to cause inexplicably faults, so the most secure The method is to use the WinXP system integrated SP1 patch to install the disc, only one area is only one area before installing the system (Win2000 system is also the same, the SP4 patch is required).
Wait a system, first modify the registry, enter the regedt32 in "Run", and then enter the car. In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMC
UrrentControlSetServicesTapiParameters subbscate newly created a key value: Edit of the menu bar → Add value, numerical name: EnableBiglba, numeric type: DWORD, Numeric: 1. Then use the disk management function in the Control Panel → Computer Management tool to divide the rest of the partition.
Q: Can Linux systems installed on the SATA hard drive?
A: Yes. Such as redhat 9, need to be set to compatible mode before installation, otherwise the hard drive can be found. After installation, upgrade the kernel to 2.4.22, if you use the CPU supports the hyperthread, select SMP support when compiling the kernel. Then modify the startup parameters of GRUB, change the HDA to HDE, the partition number is unchanged. There is also FSTAB to change, otherwise, "SWAP" exchange partition cannot be activated after starting. After restarting, change the Compatible Mode in the BIOS to Enhanced Mode so that you can play the performance of the SATA interface.
Q: It is said that the SATA hard drive supports hot swapping, can you use this feature?
A: The current SATA technology is divided into two versions of V1.0 and V2.0, where V1.0 does not support hot-swapping technology, and hot swap function is implemented in the V2.0 specification. Only the motherboard and hard disk itself is affected by hot swaps. As long as the hard disk and motherboard support this feature, the correct driver can be installed, and the hard disk can be implemented, so that it doesn't matter what the operating system is used. Now the newly launched hard disk on the market is like Seetie cool fish 7200.7.sata hard drive, support V2.0 specifications, and because traditional PATA's 4pin power plug cannot support hot-swappable features, Sijie does not support traditional PATA. 4pin power connector. This feature also needs motherboard support. Since Intel's ICH5 Nanqiao chip does not support hot-swap function, the motherboard of the i865 series cannot support this feature. Now the official website announced that the SATA hot-swappable motherboard manufacturer, only the ASRock, the model supports this function can see http://www.asrock.com/product/index_china.htm.
In addition, although the motherboard hard disk supports hot swap, but only heats the SATA data cable without cutting off the hard disk, sometimes it will result in the failure of the hot swap function. And pay attention to the time interval of continuous hot plug operations for more than 5 seconds. SATA controllers of SIS and other chips, there are special SATA control software, which can make SATA's hot swap more secure and reliable. However, it seems that SATA's hot-swappable technology is not completely mature. After all, the hard drive is different from flash memory, which is more fragile, so please use hot swap.
to sum up
At the same time, every new technology is increasing, and it will accompany it to set and use not habits. The equipment currently adopts the SATA interface has formed a trend. In addition to the hard disk, there will be more equipment SATA, we must grasp the trend, understand and master it as soon as possible. I hope this article can make readers who are about to buy SATA hard drives have a more comprehensive understanding, eliminating the problem of problems in use.
