SATA HD Recognised as SCSI in XP

[Peoples-Agent]

Hi folks,

I know it's quite common and it's normal for a SATA hard drive to be recognised as SCSI in XP but awhile back I actually got my drive to be recognised as SATA actually in Device Manager and cannot for the life of me remember how I did it.

My mobo uses the VIA K8T800 Pro/VT8237 chipset, KV8 Pro.

Western Digital Caviar hard drive, have already installed the latest 4 in 1s (4.55) Any info appreciated!!

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[saturnotaku]

Make sure you have the latest SATA controller driver installed. It may use a chipset other than VIA (probably a Silicon Image). Check that, install the update as necessary and see what happens.

[Peoples-Agent]

Definately VIA, everything points to VIA.... on boot up, during installation of XP ...the manual even!

I am using the very latest SATA driver controller too.

http://img192.exs.cx/img192/4104/sata8mt.jpg

Here's how it looks in Device Manager.

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[Riptide]

I think it's normal and nothing to worry about. This is my system, rebuilt just last weekend, and I used the latest VIA chispet drivers and latest VIA VT8237 drivers as well.

[Strahd]

I noticed that quite a few manufacturers are using SCSI controllers for their hard drives (the PCB that you're SATA cable plugs into on the drive itself). I would assume that is why XP is reporting your SATA as SCSI since you are using the latest VIA and SATA drivers.

I personally do not like IDE or SATA and use strictly SCSI ultra 320 drives in my rig.

[Riptide]

I used to use a Cheetah X15 RAID0 array... But it was severely constrained by the PCI32 bus. In fact, that is one of the very few applications that are going to benefit from PCI Express right now.

[Peoples-Agent]

Originally Posted by Riptide

I used to use a Cheetah X15 RAID0 array... But it was severely constrained by the PCI32 bus. In fact, that is one of the very few applications that are going to benefit from PCI Express right now.

Thanks dude, that's that one resolved!!

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[jAkUp]

Originally Posted by Riptide

I used to use a Cheetah X15 RAID0 array... But it was severely constrained by the PCI32 bus. In fact, that is one of the very few applications that are going to benefit from PCI Express right now.

Really? Wow, I didn't know those cheetah's had so much throughput... can't wait till we have some 15K SATA drives

[Riptide]

In RAID0 those Cheetah's were monster drives. Very, very reliable as well. Needed active cooling to function. Seagate is the king of SCSI IMO... My Adaptec 39320D controller was PCI64 compatible, which would've alleviated that bottleneck. But unfortunately 64bit PCI motherboards were tough to find for desktops. And expensive.

ATTO showed that array topping out at over 110MB/sec. which was achieving saturation of the PCI32 bus. I needed more bandwidth to really let them stretch their legs.

[Strahd]

Right now I'm using an Adaptec 2120S SCSI Ultra 320 raid controller. Attached to it are 3 Seagate Cheetah's 36gb 10k rpm drives in a raid 0 configuration. It is faster then any IDE or SATA raid I have used previously and I'm very happy with it.

All I can say is it rocks and all my disk access times are cut almost in half due to the processor on the SCSI card, the 64 megs of cache on the card and the drives themselves.

[Riptide]

Do you have a 64bit slot you're using? That was the big hangup for me and why I got rid of my setup. I needed more bandwidth.

[Strahd]

No, I have it in a standard 32bit slot for now until I find a good 64bit slot MB. Even at 32bit, it is faster then the build in SATA/IDE raid I was using before.

The MB I'm using currently is the ASUS A8V Deluxe. I guess I should get off my arse and put my rig in my sig line eh? lol