Extremely confused by Laptop Hard Drive 1

[Ploper001]

Windows XP tells me the drive is ATA (UDMA 5) on IDE Channel 0.

SiSoft Sandra tells me it's also ATA UDMA 5.

However, this laptop has an SATA Controller according to Windows XP, and since the DVD+RW Drive is ATA, why is it there if both drives are ATA?

Lastly, I have removed the HDD from the laptop, and on the Fujitsu sticker, it says "SATA".



So.....what kind of drive is it, ATA or SATA?!?

 

[Scotsdude]

what model of laptop is it? the exact model number

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Matt
He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy

 

[Ploper001]

Dell Inspiron 6400 with BIOS A12 (18/12/06).

The drive is 55.9GiB (60GB), but 54.5GiB (58.5GB) since ~1.4GiB is taken up by a hidden Dell partition that contains Media Direct (even Partition Magic can't see it lol).

This is bizzare to me since the Inspiron, since August, has had the minimum HDD option of 80GB.

 

[Scotsdude]

OK, just checked on Dell and it reckons you got a SATA drive.

Also states a choice of 60, 80, 100 or 120Gb drives

Review in PC Pro in June 06 states that it comes with a 60Gb drives.

------------------------------------------------------
Matt
He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy

 

[Ploper001]

Hmmm. I was inclined to think that based on the Drive's sticker, but why do XP and Sandra report it as an ATA drive?! I've never come across this before....is it because of some weird Dell connectors or something?

I hate buying PCs as opposed to building them, one of the main reasons being the difficulty of finding out about or updating its components but since this was a Uni laptop I had no choice...

 

[LawnBoy]

ATA stands for Advanced Technology Attachment. There are Serial ATA devices (SATA) and there are Parallel ATA devices (PATA, commonly refered to as IDE).

hth.

 

[Ploper001]

I know that....

That doesn't explain why XP and Sandra call it an IDE/ATA device operating at UDMA Mode 5 rather than an SATA device.

 

[LawnBoy]

You said that XP and Sandra were reporting an ATA device. You didn't mention they were reporting IDE/ATA.

In that case, check your BIOS sttings to see if your SATA is running in 'compatibility mode'. That will make it appear as an IDE drive to windows.

 

[Ploper001]

Sorry, I should have been clearer about that.

Here's a screenshot of it being an IDE device in Device Manager:

http://dragonq.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Device appearing on IDE Channel 0.PNG

I will check the BIOS shortly, but I'm fairly sure the only setting on there to do with the HDD is its performance mode (Quiet, Normal, Performance - it's set to Performance currently since it's running on AC power 99% of the time).

 

[Ploper001]

OK, in the BIOS, which seeing as it's a Dell one, is very limited, the only option except for the Acoustic Management is "SATA DIPM", which is on. I believe it was to do with power management.

Any ideas?

 

[LawnBoy]

On the Dell GX-280 I'm posting with there is an option in BIOS under Drives -> SATA Operation that is Combination Mode (not compatibility mode, my mistake).

This pc also shows my SATA controller under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers in Device Manager. At least yours states it's a Serial ATA, mine only states ATA...

If the sticker on the drive says SATA I'd believe it. I know this pc has SATA, even if there's no indication of it in Device Manager.

 

[Ploper001]

Hmm well as I said, I only have those 2 mentions of SATA in my BIOS

Do you think there's any performance decrease when these drives are in pseudo-IDE mode?

 

[LawnBoy]

Don't know but I would guess that there would be some performance hit. The drive in this pc is not in pseudo mode so I should be at regular SATA performance regardless of what category Device Manager lists it in.

 

[Ploper001]

Well mine seems the same setup as yours so I assume it's fine. Bit weird though.

 

[cdogg]

First, download this chipset driver update from Dell's website (it was listed under your model 6400):
[URL unfurl="true"]http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?...[/url]

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As you can see, Dell has this listed as "optional". That might explain why your Inspiron notebook wasn't configured with it in the first place. It's pretty complex, but I'll try to break it down.

Windows XP includes generic IDE drivers to allow the operating system to communicate with the hard drive. This is critical during its setup routine. Most of us already know that hitting F6 to load SATA drivers is an option during the install. What you might not know is that Intel chipsets actually don't need you too.

Intel southbridge chipsets such as ICH6 or ICH7 allow dual-mode operation between IDE and AHCI (more on AHCI later). Other brands like Promise and Silicon don't support the IDE protocol, which is why you have to use F6 to load their SATA driver. But with an Intel chipset, you can install Windows on an SATA hard drive without loading any additional drivers. When things are all said and done, however, you will notice the SATA drive stuck in IDE mode.

That's exactly what it looks like here. Either you loaded a fresh install of Windows after receiving the laptop from Dell, or Dell did not to load the "optional" chipset driver I linked to above. Until the correct SATA storage driver is loaded, the SATA drive will operate in UDMA mode 5. From your screenshot, it appears that you have the ICH7 southbridge, so this could very well be your problem.


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As for AHCI...

AHCI is the newer protocol that SATA devices use to communicate with the Southbridge chip. With this protocol, advanced SATA features such as UDMA mode 6, UDMA mode 7, NCQ, and hot-swap can be enabled.

In addition to having the right SATA driver in Windows, some BIOS's have a setting for AHCI in the BIOS. If there is one, make sure it's enabled AFTER YOU'VE UPDATED THE CHIPSET DRIVER.
More info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AHCI

Good luck!


~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Ploper001]

As I said there are definitely no other BIOS options to do with the HDD or controllers at all.

However, you are right - I did reinstall Windows (after using nLite to completely de-Dellify my XP MCE 2005 DVD and then I used the generic OEM CD-Key for XP Pro (forgetting I had MCE 2005) and now I have an XP Pro installtion that doesn't need activation and is validated correctly by WGA....it's probably illegal, but to be honest, it works and is treated legally, so I'm not too bothered - and MCE and Pro have similar prices anyway). And now that I think about it, I didn't have to provide SATA drivers during installation! Which is useful since this laptop has no floppy drive obviously lol...

Thing is, I'm fairly sure I've installed all the drivers from the Dell website that I wanted (I left out Wireless etc. since I prefer to have Windows handle that)...but I'll reinstall them.

But if I install these chipset drivers, and it turns out to make it operate as an SATA drive correctly, will I still be able to access the drive from an XP Boot CD (i.e. will it still be seen as IDE outside of Windows)?

 

[cdogg]

But if I install these chipset drivers...will I still be able to access the drive from an XP Boot CD (i.e. will it still be seen as IDE outside of Windows)?

Absolutely. When you use the Windows XP CD, the generic IDE driver will again come into play. Think of the XP setup loaded from CD as a separate instance of an OS. It doesn't care what you've installed in Windows. That information is not even looked at.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Ploper001]

I thought as much.

However, I tried to install it, and it finished without installing anything (must be already installed but it doesn't tell me this) <_<.

Could I uninstall it and try to reinstall it fully before XP loads its own drivers? If so, how, because it isn't in Add/Remove Programs....

 

[cdogg]

Did you follow the installation instructions off the download page:

Install

1.  Double-click the new icon on the desktop labeled R114079.EXE.
2.  The Self-Extracting window appears and prompts you to extract or 
unzip to C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R114079. Write down this path so the executable (I.e. 
Setup.exe) file can be found later.
3.  The Self-Extractor window appears.
4.Click OK.
5.After completing the file extraction, if the Self-Extractor 
window is still open, close it.
6.  Click the Start button and then click Run.
7.  Type C:\DELL\DRIVERS\R114079 in the Open textbox and then click OK.
8.  Follow the on-screen installation instructions.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Ploper001]

Yes, that is what I did.

I also received a reply from Dell:

"As per the issue, I have checked order detail of your system and you have purchased SATA hard drive. About the status of hard drive in device manager, I would like to say this is the default setting of window operating system."


Is this right perhaps?