where do I plug in my hdd and dvd drive?

Burninate35 · Nov 3, 2008

I have a p5q pro mobo, and I am in the middle of building it. I do not know which port I plug my hard drive and dvd drive into. There are a bunch of them. Does it matter which one I pick?

I know its a noob question, and im kind of a noob. Especially to sata.

thanks

Kris · Nov 3, 2008

Use what ever ports you can get to. It shouldn't matter.

petteyg359 · Nov 3, 2008

Use the first port for the hard drive and the second for the DVD. Usually the first port is the one on the top left. The manual that came with the motherboard should show which port is which. Regardless of SATA or IDE, if you've only got one hard drive and one optical drive, it doesn't really matter which port they're using, but if you add a drive later, it's easiest if your current drives are already on the first channel.

Silversinksam · Nov 3, 2008

I have a different P5Q, but I believe on the P5Q pro, SATA1 is the white one (If it's not white, it's the bottom right Sata header.

When using the SATA connectors in standard IDE mode, connect the primary hdd to SATA1

Burninate35 · Nov 3, 2008

wait what? lol

so I need to use the bottom right? or only if I am using it as ide? how would I use it as ide?

But overall it does not matter, and I should use the one labled sata1 in my manuel for my hdd?

and should I use the one next to it be for my dvd?

petteyg359 · Nov 3, 2008

Don't use IDE mode unless you have to. It gives no benefit, and nearly always performs worse than AHCI or RAID (and there's really no point to using AHCI rather than RAID, either).

EDIT:

Looked at the PDF manual. SATA 1-6 are the red ports:

6-4-2
5-3-1

The orange/white ports are on the Silicon Image controller, top is 1, bottom is 2.

KillrBuckeye · Nov 3, 2008

petteyg359 said:
Don't use IDE mode unless you have to. It gives no benefit, and nearly always performs worse than AHCI or RAID (and there's really no point to using AHCI rather than RAID, either).

Do you even know what RAID is? It's not even applicable for a single hard drive. His choices are AHCI and IDE mode. IDE mode will work fine and should ensure a smooth installation of the operating system. Performance won't be much different than AHCI mode according to everything I've read.

Nhut Pham · Nov 3, 2008

plus on the asus boards, you can't use express gate in ahci unless you boot it from a usb drive...that is if you were planning to use express gate.

petteyg359 · Nov 3, 2008

KillrBuckeye, please read my previous post again. IDE, AHCI, and RAID are the available options in the BIOS of any board with a recent ICH chipset. I didn't say put the drive in a RAID array, I said use RAID mode.

IDE: No NCQ. Bus limited to 100MB/s.

AHCI: NCQ. Bus not limited. No benefit over RAID mode.

RAID: NCQ. Bus not limited. Ability to create a RAID array in the future without reformatting and reinstalling Windows, or messing with the registry to switch driver from AHCI to RAID.

It doesn't matter how many drives are installed in the system.

OP: Are you using XP or Vista?

KillrBuckeye · Nov 3, 2008

petteyg359: Point taken, good explanation of the different modes. I didn't know that by choosing RAID mode you could create an array in the future without reformatting and reinstalling the OS. Still, I think IDE mode is the safest bet for the OP (especially if he's using WinXP) since it sounds like he's relatively new to all of this. I don't think the bandwidth limit of 100MB/s and lack of NCQ really hurts performance noticeably. in fact, I've read in Maximum PC that NCQ actually hurts performance in some situations.

Burninate35 · Nov 3, 2008

I put my hdd in the orange port (0). and I put my dvd drive in the one next to it.

does this all sound good?

I just want to make sure it is all good before I boot for the first time with all of my hardware in.

jason4207 · Nov 4, 2008

You want to use the Intel ports (6), and not the other ones (2) (Silicon Image or Jmicron).

Once you do this you can also disable the Jmicron or Silicon Image ports in the BIOS and speed up your boot time considerably.

Burninate35 · Nov 4, 2008

interesting. I am confused now because I checked my manual and it said that the orange is 0 and the white is 1. it also told me to put my hard drives in them.

why is it wrong?

I don't have a problem with switching them but I am confused.

petteyg359 · Nov 4, 2008

Orange IS 0 and white IS 1, but they're on the Silicon Image controller. You want to be using the red ports on the Intel controller. Bottom right of the red ports is 0.
531
420

Burninate35 · Nov 4, 2008

ok im using the bottom right.

I am having a huge problem though. When I try to install windows xp I never get an option to do a clean install. I can only upgrade. It then asks me to put in a legitamate copy of of an os. like windows nt or 2000 or xp. my only choice is to click ok and have it fail at finding the disk. I don't know what to do. and the disk is not an upgrade disk.

where do I plug in my hdd and dvd drive?

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