Hard drives in Windows OS

[Sydney1]

I am new as of today to this forum, and I just wanted to say Thank You to everyone on the forum who is so willing to share their precious time and knowledge with the members!

I am a newb to the world of computers beyond just the daily use of email, internet, basic programs, etc. Although I have successfully installed some HD's and other peripherals!

I am hoping to expand my knowledge of computer hardware, os, etc. by reading this forum and asking questions for clarification.

We have a "Hackintosh" (hope that's not a swear word in the computing world)

I have done my best to detail our system info on my profile

FYI....Mac OS works great, all my problems seem to stem from Windows based HD's

Anyways, thanks again for being a supportive and helpful community! Looking forward to one day being able to offer my assistance to other newbies :grinthumb

 

[Leeky]

Hello Sydney (love the name, our 1yr girl is named Sydney )

These forums are indeed fantastic for finding knowledge and the majority of the regular members on here are like walking computer bibles!

Hackintosh is sort of swearing though. Its actually illegal to use Mac OSX on anything other than Apple branded hardware. I only say this because quite a few people don't realise this.

As for hard drives; Hard drives are hard drives. What they fit is defined in large part by the connection they are designed around. For example, I have a 256GB SSD (which uses a SATA connector) that fits both Mac's and Windows/linux PCs. This said SSD actually started its life in my iMac, before I fitted it to my Dell PC. They're totally transferable as long as the connections between the two different computers are the same.

 

[Sydney1]

oops! thanks for the head's up. I didn't know about the Mac/PC thing!

Well, as far as my HD goes. I did some futher reading and it was suggested that I enter the BIOS/CMOS (not sure what the difference is) and change the Integrated Peripherals settings from ACHI to IDE

Then begin installation of Windows 7 OS and once it restarts enter back to BIOS/CMOS and change back to ACHI

Allow set up to continue and Win 7 OS should be configured to ACHI

Tried this, but OS is still freezing at various stages. 1st time being during the "set up is preparing for first use" stage

 

[Leeky]

Hard disk don't like the disk setting changing. Generally there is several, with SATA, AHCI and IDE being the most common in my experience.

The idea as far as I have worked out is to set the setting as IDE in BIOS, so older OS's like Windows XP can in theory recognise the SATA drive. Windows XP is a good example of this, because it can't read SATA drivers without the manufacturers (of the hard drives) drivers being loaded during setup.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 don't have this problem, so the drive should be set to either SATA or AHCI as drivers aren't a problem.

Also, changing the setting of a hard drive already in use will, in the majority of cases, render the hard drive unreadable to the OS. It doesn't destroy the drive, it just stops the OS from using it and therefore stops the OS functioning.

BIOS is the motherboards hardware configuration utility. All settings relating to the motherboard, and identification of components are generally listed in there.

CMOS is the action house of the motherboard in simple terms. System checks are carried out by the CMOS to confirm components like RAM/CPU etc are detected, and once POST is complete (the completion of checks to ensure fault free start up) it then fires up the hard drives among other things ready for them to start up your chosen OS.

The above two explanations may not be how they are officially defined, but its how I remember them in my mind.

 

[Sydney1]

goodness gravy! now Win 7 OS is installed on the HD but it keeps freezing up after only moments.

Thanks for the tip on the IDE/AHCI settings. The system clearly didn't like it when I set it to IDE as per the other instructions I had read about.

 

[Sydney1]

I should mention OS doesn't seem to freeze up when started in safe mode