Here is my motherboard:

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...29&modelmenu=1

And I'm interested in this baby:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...227140&CatId=0


My motherboard comes with 2 Serial ATA controllers and a power cable, plus my PSU has a Serial ATA power connector as well. I currently have the hard drive that came with my computer, uses IDE cables, 80GB. I'm looking for a much-needed upgrade and I was wondering if that SATA-300 Seagate would work with my motherboard. I also would like to keep both hard drives, perhaps have Windows running on the older one while everything else (movies, games, media, files, etc.) is placed on the new one.

Is there a way to just plug in the new HD and transfer things over from the old one without having to reinstall applications or Windows for that matter?

Thanks.

If you are just using the SATA for data you can just plug and play as they say.

If you wanted to move XP to the SATA then you would have to reinstall it.

Otherwise you can just leave it as is.

Thanks Jeph, that's all I wanted to make certain

But will the SATA-300 be compatible?

I see... Apparently not. Not at its' full potential anyway.

The manual states: "150 MB/s data transfer rate."

This is what the 300 refers to. From what I read you can jumper the 300 to work at 150 but it will not work at 300.

SATA 3.0 Gb/s
Soon after SATA's introduction, enhancements were made to the standard. A 3Gb/s signalling rate was added to the PHY layer, offering up to twice the data throughput. To ensure seamless backward compatibility between older SATA and the newer faster SATA/3Gbs devices, the latter devices are required to support the original 1.5Gb/s rate. In practice, some older SATA systems that do not support SATA speed negotiation require the peripheral drive's speed be manually hardlimited to 150 MB/s with the use of a jumper for a 300 MB/s drive. [1]

Like SATA 1.5Gb/s, SATA 3Gb/s uses 8B/10B encoding resulting in an actual data transfer rate of 2.4 Gb/s, or 300 MB/s.

The 3.0 Gb/s specification has been very widely referred to as “Serial ATA II” (“SATA II”), contrary to the wishes of the Serial ATA standards organization that authored it. The official website notes that SATA II was in fact that organization's name at the time, the SATA 3Gb/s specification being only one of many that the former SATA II defined, and suggests that “SATA 3Gb/s” be used instead. (The Serial ATA standards organization has since changed names, and is now “The Serial ATA International Organization”, abbreviated SATA-IO.)

SATA-IO plans to further increase the maximum throughput of Serial ATA to 6 Gb/s around the year 2007.

SATA 3Gb/s is sometimes also referred to as SATA/300 or SATA II, continuing the line of PATA/100, PATA/133 and SATA/150.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Here is a Google for sata2 motherboards:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...boards&spell=1

Ah, nutters

So the SATA-300 is the SATA-II, did not remember that


Hmm, well, the same HD is available in SATA-150 format but it's 200GB and $6 cheaper. Would you still advise getting the 250GB SATA-300? At $107, I don't see why not even though it'll only go at 150.

I really do not see why not.

From what I've been reading the jumper setting will take care of it.

Although the motherboard is not forward compatible the hard drive is backward compatible.


There was a recent BIOS update for that board but it appears to only concern the CPU:


Version 0803 2006/07/10 update



Description P5P800 SE Release BIOS 0803
Support new CPUs. Please refer to our website at: http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/c...Language=en-us
Fix "USB Overcurrent" error message during POST, even if USB is being disabled in BIOS.



http://support.asus.com/download/dow...el=P5P800%20SE

Hmm, well the C drive is basically where I've got important data, program files, drivers, and XP.

My D partition on the other hand hold over 30GB of games, my graphic design, and my vast library of mp3's. If I did plug in that new HD, would it in any way be possible to transfer all my data into a D drive on the new HD? This would save me the trouble of reinstalling games as they would still be in the same path.

I'm still a bit confused as to how I would run this thing without having to format my older HD. Adding a secondary HD is something I've surprisingly never done.

I'm quickly running out of space

It would be simple just to move data and mp3's etc. Programs would need to be reinstalled.

If you really want to move the D: partition you would need 3rd party software.

This is known as cloning or imaging.

Here are some ideas of this process:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...eid=418&page=2

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...oning+software

Read through the PCstats link, great article.

However I believe I have laid out my course of action now:

1. Buy the new HD of course
2. After connecting it, the motherboard should automatically detect settings and use it as a SATA-150.
3. I format the new HD in Windows to make it usable, setting the allocation size to a necessary number.
4. I move all my critical data and files into the new HD.
5. I turn off the computer, remove the new HD and enter XP setup.
6. I delete the C and D partitions on the old HD and create a new C to take up all 76GB. Install XP.
7. After the install is finished, I insert the new HD back in.

Now will my new HD automatically become a D partition? What must be done for this?

Please tell me if any of my steps are incorrect

Sounds like a good plan.

Drive letters are assigned by Windows somewhat arbitrarily.

For example in my system my SATA drive with XP is C: then my DVD/CD is D: and my IDE/ATA second drive is E:

Anyway other than A: (floppy) and C: (system) the letters may vary but are also unimportant.

You might want to consider using F.A.S.T. to move your data. Worth a look at anyway:

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm