SATA Mode

[loonie]

Hi,

I have an MSI661FM3-L mother board with the SIS 964 chipset bios version 1.3 (the latest). For some reason MSI have only included the option to either Enable or Disable SATA.

Is there any way to set the SATA mode without using the bios?

Is there anyone who can customize the bios to enable me to set this option?

The SATA mode defaults to RAID, and I would like to set it to IDE as I only have on drive. I know the Gigabyte board with the same chipset has this option enabled.

Thank you

 

[captaincranky]

Hmmm.....

Wouldn't SATA "disabled" actually be IDE? Win XP won't run a SATA drive as a SATA without SATA drivers installed. A single SATA running as SATA is called "AHCI" mode, and the drives will only run native in ACHI in Vista. Some manufacturers software like Maxtor's, "Max Blast", is actually overlaying a translation layer to cause the drive to run as IDE. Have you actually tried to run the drive with SATA "disabled" in the BIOS? Some boards simply default to IDE when presented with a single sata drive. With my Intel board, (G965) all I have to do is just plug in 1 SATA drive and the BIOS Auto-switches to IDE. If I hook up 2 drives it won't do anything, it just hangs up asking for SATA drivers.

 

[loonie]

When I switch SATA to "disabled", it does just that, it disables SATA and I can't see my drive anymore, whether I have dirvers installed or not.

When I asked MSI, they told me that the SATA on this board defaults to RAID and that they're sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

My major problem is that i want to use this drive as my primary drive.

 

[captaincranky]

Always Mean It When You Say You're Sorry.......

When I asked MSI, they told me that the SATA on this board defaults to RAID and that they're sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

You seem to want to buck the new trend in drive configuration, (as do I). From what I can gather from MSI's answer, It's either time to spring for another drive or another motherboard. Pretty much all of the HDD controller cards available convert IDE (PATA) to SATA and introduce RAID. Plan B isn't that much, (if any) more attractive. Plan B: ask MSI if Vista will run your drive native as ACHI on your board. Incidentally, I went to MSI's site last night, plugged your drive number into the "search" box, which then told me that product doesn't exist. Not your fault, the site's always been like that, so you should have gotten them to apologize for that while they were at it.
If you think about it RAID 1 isn't so bad. After all, who remembers to back their stuff up when they should.
Anyway, hang out here for as while, perhaps someone will know more than me, which is easily done.

 

[loonie]

Solution Found

I found a solution.

A had to go to driverpacks.net, download the RAID pack and streamline it into a windows install disk. It works, but its still not the solution i wanted. My drive is now being run in some or other RAID, even though there's only 1 drive. I can enter the RAID setup utility, but it wont give me any options because there's only 1 drive. Anyways, it works, and will hold till my next major upgrade.

Thanks to captaincranky for at least trying to help.