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    could I change SATA IDE to SATA AHCI later?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Anadhi, Mar 7, 2010.

  1. Anadhi

    Anadhi Notebook Consultant

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    Hi guys, I just bought a brand new laptop for my mother Acer aspire 4740 331G25MN. at first I thought there was something wrong because I couldnt install windows xp, after looking at the bios, I just noticed that this laptop used SATA AHCI, I switched it to IDE and now I could install it normally. My question is, could I change it to SATA AHCI later on? I heard SATA AHCI support faster file transfer compared to IDE. I probably wouldn't notice huge difference in performance, but I would like to use this feature sometime. Is it possible to activate it once I install windows xp? I tried to install the intel AHCI driver provided by ACER, but apparently I could only install third party driver through floppy disk, and my laptop doesn't have one, so IDE is the only option for me.

    Any help would be appreciated, because I'm very new about this SATA AHCI and SATA IDE thing, I never noticed it when I installed XP into my benq joybook.
     
    Anadhi, Mar 7, 2010
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  2. naton

    naton Notebook Virtuoso

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    You can use nLite to create a windows XP CD with the necessary SATA drives for your laptop. This way you can install XP even when your BIOS is set to SATA. No floppy disk required.

    I haven't tried it myself, but you might be able to fix XP (i.e. to add SATA support to an IDE installation) with this XP+SATA drivers CD without having to reinstall everything. This should be achievable by attempting to repair your already installed windows XP (by selecting the second repair option when installing a fresh copy of windows)

    you can get nLite from here
    and here is a tutorial on how to add SATA drivers: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml
     
    naton, Mar 7, 2010
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  3. weinter

    weinter /dev/null

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    If you wanted better performance you would have used Windows 7 instead.
     
    weinter, Mar 7, 2010
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  4. naton

    naton Notebook Virtuoso

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    WinXP is still faster then Win7 :D
    The order is WinXP > Win7 >> Vista :D
     
    naton, Mar 7, 2010
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  5. sgilmore62

    sgilmore62 uber doomer

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    sgilmore62, Mar 7, 2010
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  6. leslieann

    leslieann Notebook Deity

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    That isn't entirely true.

    It depends on system specifications and the test you are performing. Win7 has outperformed XP in many cases. Xp wasn't designed to take full advantage of everything current and never will. The faster your system, the more likely Win7 will be faster.
     
    leslieann, Mar 7, 2010
    #6