How important is SATA Native Support?

Greetings folks!

I have a quick question about the importance of ENABLING SATA Native Support from BIOS.

When I downgraded the OS from Vista to XP on my Compaq C762NR, I had to disable the Sata native support. But when I enabled it back after I properly installed XP, the notebook couldn't boot from the hard drive. I can only boot when it is disabled..

So I would like to know if using the laptop with the SATA native support disabled, is a bad thing and might possibly harm my system in the future.

And also, I cannot install the intel matrix storage manager without enabling the Sata native support, and so how important is the intel matric manager and do I really need to install it?

Any help is greatly appreciated. \

Thank You

 

Your notebook should work just fine in IDE mode.

I have a acer aspire 5315 that supports both SATA and IDE modes.
Did a test on hard drive with both modes and SATA mode is twice as
fast in some tests and the about the same in others.

I searched for a way to install in SATA mode for XP. Seems you have to
press F6 to install drivers while installing XP. I used a usb floppy. You can
also slipstream the drivers into your xp install disk.

I never did find a way to change to SATA mode after installing in IDE mode.

If your not using SATA mode you don't need the intel matrix storage manager.

James

 

Thanks for the reply jc55,

So since my hard drive is installed and running in IDE mode, I don't have to install the intel matrix storage manager? And I guess that if I want to install my hard drive in SATA mode, I have to format and reinstall Xp?

 

No in IDE mode you don't need it, it would do nothing.

As far as I know reinstalling is the only way to get SATA working.

I have read of people changing to SATA from IDE, but I never got
any of the instructions to work. Did a lot of work for nothing.

Ended up installing in SATA mode using a usb floppy drive.

James