Hard drive type

[Metro]

I've just finished building a computer and it's the first time I've installed a serial ATA hard drive. How do I confirm that the Serial ATA driver has been installed correctly and the hard drive is recognised and working in Serail ATA mode?

[KebabMeister]

Doesn't SATA use a different interface (not the usual IDE connector)? 

[Metro]

Yes it does use a different connector to the motherboard but I don't know if the drivers for Sata have correctly loaded. I think the motherboard will treat it as an IDE device if the drivers aren't loaded correctly...but I'm not sure!

[KebabMeister]

I would have thought that because it's a different connector plus if it's listed as SATA in the BIOS then it should work as SATA.

I can't think of any other way off checking unless there is a utility for checking HD access times?

[Metro]

Thanks for your answer...I've tried looking in the Bios but cannot find any reference to Sata. The computer is working fine so I'll just carry on without knowing :O)

[BillyNoMates]

If the PC is working fine, and you have only connected the SATA drive via a SATA cable to the SATA interface on the Motherboard (or SATA controller board) it must be OK.

I don't believe any HDDs have both IDE and SATA interfaces.

Presumably you did the 'hit F6' when first booting up with the new drive to load the SATA frivers from floppy ?

The BIOS should have some reference to SATA being enabled as it usually isn't by default.

[QmunkE]

If you haven't used an 80-pin IDE ribbon connector, then the system should be treating it as a SATA drive.