[ctl-linux] SATA drives showing on PATA boot screen

[Larry Alkoff]

Scott_Purcell at Dell.com wrote:
> Check your BIOS or the BIOS of your SATA controller to see if it gives
> an option to run in ATA or AHCI mode.  I this this is what you would see
> if it is set to "ATA".  From what I understand, that is a legacy mode
> that allows SATA to emulate PATA for older OSs (notably including
> earlier versions of XP) that don't recognize AHCI mode.  It is the
> default setting on many controllers and system boards with integrated
> SATA.
> 
> Switching to AHCI mode should give better performance and switching
> modes should be harmless to your data.
> 
> I had just installed Ubuntu 7.10 on a new system before I noticed that
> setting last week -- I asked some experts about it, made the switch, and
> everything just worked.  Although, I have to say, I hadn't noticed the
> identification difference you describe so it is possible this is a
> different issue -- it just sounds like it could be related.
> 
> I don't know anything about your other questions...
> 
> Scott Purcell
> 
>

Thanks Scott - especially about looking into the BIOS of the SATA 
controller.  I'll see if that can be found.  There is nothing about 
ATA/AHCI in the regular BIOS.

I'm also using Feisty.

Larry




> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-bounces+scott_purcell=dell.com at ctlug.org
> [mailto:linux-bounces+scott_purcell=dell.com at ctlug.org] On Behalf Of
> Larry Alkoff
> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 5:24 PM
> To: CTLUG; Ubuntu Help and User Discussions
> Subject: [ctl-linux] SATA drives showing on PATA boot screen
> 
> On my Kubuntu computer with an Intel 945P Neo3 motherboard my SATA
> drives show up on the boot screen as Primary Master, Pri Slave,
> Secondary Master and Sec Slave.
> 
> Is it normal for PATA drives to show up on the boot screen with such a
> designation?
> 
> I spent some time identifying which SATA plug was SDA1, SDA2, SDB1 and
> SDB2.  Should I have bothered?
> 
> Do the listed designations have anything at all to do with how they
> should be used?  For example, in a system with high traffic between two
> drives you would probably want to assign different Primary IDE channels
> to the two drives and put the CD-ROM on the least used Secondary
> channel.
> 
> IOW, is it ok to just plug in the SATA devices into any unused channel?
> 
> I've already seen how the BIOS controlls the boot drive sequence.
> 
> One other question.  How can I boot up SATA drives with an additional
> old PATA drive in the system?  The PATA seems to 'take over' and the
> system tries to boot with that and ignore the boot order?
> 
> Larry
> 
> --
> Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
> Using Thunderbird on Linux
> _______________________________________________
> Linux at ctlug.org
> http://www.ctlug.org/mailman/listinfo/linux
> 


-- 
Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
Using Thunderbird on Linux