AHCI or RAID for SATA drives?

[jillc70]

OK, I just built a new comp. It has the following:

Intel D955XBK mobo

Intel P4 EE w/HTT 3.73 GHz CPU

Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 SATA II 250 GB Hard Drive

Samsung IDE DVD-ROM (primary master)

Plextor 716 SA/SW SATA DVD Burner

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT 512 MB DDR3 PCI-E Graphics Card

2x1GB Patriot PC2 5300 667MHz DDR2 Memory

Ultra Floppy Drive/Card Reader

Enermax Noisetaker 600-W PSU

I had a ton of problems installing Windows XP Pro SP2. I finally succeeded after updating the BIOS and having only the Samsung IDE DVD-ROM, floppy, hard drive, memory, and graphics card connected.

However, I cannot connect my Plextor SATA DVD burner. I could only get the install to go by configuring SATA as RAID in BIOS. Then I installed the Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller (ICH7R) during Windows setup (hit F6). That is the driver that controls the 4 black SATA connectors (0 to 3) on the board. There is also a set of blue connectors (4 to 7) that are controlled by a Silicon Image SATALink Controller (SiI 3114). When I tried to install the drivers for this, the Silicon Image drivers disk could not be read by Wondows Setup.

I did install the Silicon Image software from the Intel CD when I booted into Windows. However, it installs a Java 2 Runtime application, but not much else. I keep getting a message when I start up in Windows that no SiI controller can be found. I tried connecting my SATA DVD burner to the blue connectors, but it isn't recognized at all except by the Silicon Image RAID Utility accessible during bootup (before OS is loaded). When I connect it to the black (Intel) connectors (where the hard drive is connected), Windows boots up and starts installing drivers for new hardware. Then I get the BSOD with a stop error and it reboots, only to do the same thing. When I disconnect the burner or connect it to the blue connectors, Windows boots fine with no BSOD.

I'm confused as to how to configure SATA in BIOS. My choices are IDE, AHCI, and RAID. I chose RAID because that what Intel recommends and that did allow Windows to finally install. However, I want my SATA DVD burner! I also may want to add a second HD in the future, but I don't want RAID. Since I configured for RAID I would think it will force me to create a RAID set.

So I guess my questions are as follows:

Should I configure SATA as AHCI and then install the Intel 82801GR/GH SATA AHCI Controller driver during Windows setup?

What exactly is AHCI (Intel is pretty vague on this)?

Thanks.