# My Sata HDD is in IDE-mode?!



## Laurijan (Oct 5, 2007)

Hi!

I am just putting together a PC which has a ECS G31T-M mobo and a 160Gb SataII HDD. 
It has 4 Sata ports which should allow 3Gb/s according to the manual.

After I installed Windows and the mobo driver CD I started a chipset identification program from Intel which said that the Sata HDD is in IDE mode. 
I locked into the device manager and there were entries named "Intel Serial ATA Storage Controller", "Primary IDE Channel" and "Secondary IDE Channel". 
When I locked into Primary IDE Channel it said that the Device (HDD) is in "Ultra DMA 5 Mode". 
I locked into the Bios and couldn´t find any setting which changed the IDE mode to Sata mode.
Does anyony know something about this problem?


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## ktr (Oct 5, 2007)

Sata can be emulated to IDE, RAID, and some other controllers. In the bios you should see an option on SATA being selected as IDE. Select raid to be reconsidered as a sata drive. But first and foremost is to install the raid drivers, or you comp wont see the drive. And you might have booting problems for the drive number can change, and in result screw up the boot.ini.


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## Hawk1 (Oct 5, 2007)

http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t457699.html

This link will also show you how to change to AHCI SATA mode without a complete reinstall, if you like.


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## Ripper3 (Oct 5, 2007)

I annoyingly need to run my SATA drive in IDE mode unless I reinstall and install the floppy drivers for my motherboard. Too much of a bother for me, I only have SATA1 on this board, so I'm not missing much, 133-150Mbps.

You may jsut need to install the floppy drivers when prompted, after pressing the F6 button, and change the BIOS settings, of course.


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## Laurijan (Oct 6, 2007)

I can´t activate AHCI in Bios - there´s under "Sata Controller Mode" only Auto, Compatible (Sata only), and Enhanced - no AHCI - tried to install Windows in all modes - doesn´t help.


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