SATA optical drives

[Arjun]

Hi

My old IDE Sony DVD-RW drive seems to have died. RIP.

I was going to buy this Samsung SATA drive as a replacement.
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners

But i've heard some rumours that SATA optical drives don't work without drivers, that you can't use them for a fresh format and windows install etc....

Please advise. This is a relatively new model, not one of the earlier SATA drives. And my mobo bios is up to date.

[Darthtanion]

To the best of my knowledge, SATA drivers are only required when loading WinXP from boot, just like they are needed for SATA hard drives when loading WinXP (you know, the F6 drivers). Vista has native support for SATA devices so does not have the requirement for the install drivers.

From then on, the manufacturer may or may not recommend a driver installation to handle all the capabilities of the device. Most opticals do not require this, but if they are needed then the manufacturer's website should have them for download.

[Arjun]

Thanks.

So I guess if im doing a fresh format with this I will need to have the driver on a floppy disk...

[Darthtanion]

If you are still using WinXP, yes. Vista will natively support SATA drives from everything I've heard. AFAIK WinXP cannot use a USB thumb drive to load from.

[Arjun]

Problems..... Im not reinstalling windows so no driver required.

I bought the drive, connected it. BIOS detects it but windows refuses to load while it is connected. It gets stuck on the windows loading screen. Won't even boot up in safe mode. If I connect the drive after windows has loaded then it freezes when I connect.

When I disconnect the drive it works as normal....

[Darthtanion]

SATA does not require any master/slve settings, so since you have a SATA hard drive you shouldn't be having many issues at all. Check in the BIOS and make sure that your boot sequence is set properly. From your comment, you should be able to enter CMOS before you come to where the system is locking on you. Sometimes if you connect a SATA drive to a lower numbers SATA port, Windows will automatically think you want THAT drive as your boot drive. ALso, double check your SATA cable on your optical drive by trying to boot with that one connected to your hard drive. I recently had issues with a system boot hang and the problem was the cable.

[ANZAC_ELITE]

I find this interesting beacause I have both HDD and optical drive that are SATA and I have never loaded a driver for either with a clean install of XP Pro, is it only XP Home that requires an F6 sata driver install? because I certainly don't need one.

EDIT: This true for both SP1 & SP2 installs too btw and a clean install is deleting and recreating/formatting the partition.

[Darthtanion]

May depend on the mainboard, dunno. I have had to install the F6 drivers when I do a fresh install with WinXP Pro w/ SP2 slipstreamed.

[Arjun]

Tried changing the SATA cable, did not help. Also checked boot sequence but it was correct. I don't think this is an issue anyway because I do get to the Windows XP loading screen before it freezes. So it is booting from the correct HD or it would not find XP...

Thanks for the replies.

[Darthtanion]

Have you checked the SATA cable(s)? When I recently added another SATA drive to my system with a bad cable, it hung.