ACHI SATA question

[srock]

I am putting together my first machine: Asus P5B, 2 500 GB HD(both are SATA II), sapphire x1950xt, GSkill 800 (2GB), Corsair 520 PS

It booted!!

I now have to set up the bios and have some questions:

I am going to install XP SP2, I have to set up the SATA drives do I enable ACHI or leave it as IDE (I don't want to do RAID). If I do enable ACHIwhy am I doing it? If I enable it and want to disable it later am I in trouble??

In the old IDE world, the boot drive was identified and setup with the format command - with two SATA drives how do I identify which one is the boot drive and the how do I partition and format each drive?

Any and all help appreciated

Steve

 

[Tmagic650]

Just enable the SATA controller in the bios. The SATA drive will be the boot drive in bios boot sequence automatically

 

[CCT]

edit: jump to section 1.7 of the following;

http://www.intel.com/technology/serialata/pdf/rev1_1.pdf

OR, just read this simpler text;

http://www.directron.com/ncqvstcq.html


As to Sata install, the Asus manual is actually pretty good to follow.