Quote:
Originally Posted by BigAl /forum/post/0
I have a 965 based board and vista RC2 installed without any drivers needing to be installed. If you are doing a RAID array you may need drivers but you shouldn't need them if you are just doing a straight SATA drive.
For many of the Intel boards this is true...kinda, but it gets complicated. I have a 965 board as well. It's the one in my HTPC system-a GigaByte GA-965P-S3. There are 6 SATA ports. 4 are native Intel SATA ports, which means they are integrated into the north bridge/south bridge chipsets. 2 are GigaByte raid SATA ports, for which the hardware functionality is included on a different chip on the motherboard. The 4 Intel ports can run in a mode that emulates IDE mode in the BIOS, and which is also the mode the BIOS defaults to out of the box. The GigaByte ports cannot emulate IDE mode and require a driver upon install.
IF you have changed the BIOS for the Intel ports to run natively in SATA mode, and not emulate IDE, prior to installing XP or Vista you will also have to install an Intel SATA driver. It's just that many people don't ever bother going into their BIOS and setting it for native SATA. Which also means that many people are running their SATA drives in IDE mode, and not native SATA, so they are missing out on some performance.