SATA/AHCI BIOS Support and XP 64

[oao]

I purchased a Gateway T-6836 which is an Intel T5750 system. It came with Vista 64. I want to downgrade it to XP 64. I managed to find all the drivers, but ran into a problem with SATA support.

There is no BIOS switch for ATA compatibility mode/SATA mode.

The installed Vista 64 sees the drive as SATA. However, XP 64 does not and when I try to install it, it does not see the HD.

I read all the stuff about SATA driver integration via nLite, but as far as I can tell for that to work there must be a BIOS switch. Do I understand it correctly that without that switch I cannot install XP on this computer at all? Even in ATA mode? I find that hard to believe? Can I go ahead and integrate the SATA drivers and install even without the switch?

If indeed the BIOS switch is required, how come Vista does not need it and XP even with the drivers integrated does not work?

Some clarifications will be appreciated.

Thanks.

[TranceEnergy]

I have yet to hear about some computer's bios that does not have the option to disable ahci feature for sata. There's also tests showing there's just negible gain, and sometimes loss of performance for enabling it.

For one you need to have the os installed with the driver's textmode driver, or booting the os with systemdrive set at ahci will fail.

Vista doesnt need it because it comes with updated drivers. If you have a pre-vista os and the driver integrated, it will work just as happily with it as vista. Well even better actually but let's not go there.

Yes you can integrate the driver with your os, and still install the os with the native ide mode enabled for your sata drive. Just because you have integrated drivers into the install medium doesnt mean it becomes necessary to put every driver to use.

I suck at explaining but hope this helps.

[oao]

There is nothing wrong with your explanation.

Regarding the SATA gain, yes, I am aware that the gain is negligible, but it's the best I can do.

A better option is probably a 7200rpm drive, but they max at 160GB and mine is 250GB. At that size a 7200 would be too expensive anyway.

In the case of this computer, Gateway has responded to my question as follows:

"The Gateway T-6836 Notebook do not have ATA

ports it only has SATA ports available for hard drives, that is why the

option SATA/ATA Compatibility Mode is unavailabl on the BIOS setup."

Now if that were true, it leaves me no option but to integrate the AHCI driver; and if it lowers performance, then I'll be up the creek without a paddle. But I find it hard to believe that there are no ATA ports. When I look in Device Manager, I see 2 IDE channels and, if I recall correctly, an Ultra-ATA one too. I'll have to check again.

Be that as it may, I managed to integrate the SATA drivers into XP 64 via nLite and it should work. I hope that performance will at worst not improve, but if it slows things down I hope I am right to doubt their answer.

[TranceEnergy]

Well finding drivers sometimes is a very long frustrating experience.

I for one, need to extract the vista x64 Display drivers, to find the drivers for "native sata controller" for my xp x64 os. It really doesnt make any sense, but it's just the way it is.

I dont need the drivers, there's nothing i gain from it that i know of, but i still kind of like it anyway.

True ATA ports is an IDE port from the 80's, dependening on one's point of view, so that may be right in any case. However, it is not and cannot be, an excuse for why its not in the bios, as the two things, sata and pata ports and the sata legacy and or native mode, has nothing to do with their physical connection ports , sata or pata.