Thanks. That was a really helpful answer.

I don't think I will reinstall xp yet though.

I uninstalled Norton 2005 and now the system is really fast.

  themackid

:emotion-21:

Bev.

You should have a setting in the system setup to change the SATA controller to RAID Autodetect/ATA.  This places the controller in IDE compatible mode so that the native drivers in the Win XP installation disk will see the drive.  You reach the system setup menu by starting the machine and pressing F2 during the self test screen.

Boot into  the bios and set your Drive controller setting to Raid Autodetect /ATA.

You were supposed to install the SATA driver from a floppy by pressing F6 during the XP installation process.

Since it sounds like you didn't do that, you can use the file here. Ignore the part about Stop Errors and follow the instructions to install it from a download on your desktop.

When you reboot the first time, you'll have to go into BIOS setup and change SATA Operation to RAID Autodetect/AHCI.

Ron

Hi

I too have just reinstalled XP on my venerable Dimension 8400 having replaced the hard drive  and am at a loss as to how I renable the AHCI mode. Basically I've notice that under ATA it's just not quite a quick as when it was using AHCI and I have been trying to install the Intel application accelerator RAID edition that is on my DELL resource disk. When I run this I get the message "Incompatible hardware. This software is not supported on this chipset" . When I review the read me file as it suggest it says the following:

************************************************************
* 2.  SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
************************************************************

1.  The system must contain an Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4
    Processor and one of the following Intel products:
     
    - Intel(R) 6300ESB I/O Controller Hub (ESB)
    - Intel(R) 82801FR I/O Controller Hub (ICH6R)
    - Intel(R) 82801ER I/O Controller Hub (ICH5R)

2.  The system must be running on one of the following
    Microsoft* operating systems:

        - Windows* XP Professional
    - windows XP Home Edition
        - Windows 2000
    - Windows 2000 Advanced Server
    - Windows Server 2003

3.  The system should contain at least the minimum system
    memory required by the operating system.

4.  The 'Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility'
    must be installed prior to installing the Intel(R)
    Application Accelerator.

In answer to 2,3, and 4

2. I'm running XP pro

3. Got plent of memory

4. I've run the Intel(R) Chipset Sofware Installation Utility (Under the "controller drivers" of my Resource CD

Now to 1

if I look in the device manager, under system devices i have things like 82801FB LPC Interfface controller and under  IDE/ATAPI controllers I have 809201FB Ultra ATA Storage controller 2652 and FBM Ultra ATA Storage controller 26FF

So it looks like I don't have the correct hrware which is extremely odd give that I'm sure that AHCI was set up before..

Can anyone provde any help please?

Thanks for replying.

I have already found this page and run  the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager install progream as suggested. I get the error message

"This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing this software. Setup will exit". Unfortunately it doesn't say what it doesn't like. I've added memory (now 3GB), a firewire card, wifi and replaced the primary disk with a 500GB one with plenty of  spare space on C. I'm at a loss.

When I go back into the BIOS and set the drive to AHCI the computer starts the Windows boot and then asks if I want to go into setup and only boots if I change it back to ATA.

The only thing that doesn't meet the specs it would seem is the I/O controller but I don't know why mine should be different.

Any other ideas?

Thanks

Well, either there's a missing/corrupted Windows file and/or the SATA interface has failed, either on the motherboard or on the hard drive.

Assuming you have your Windows Reinstallation CD, boot normally (set to ATA, obviously) and then click Start>run

Type in: sfc /scannow

(One space between sfc and /scannow)

Click Ok

Insert XP CD if requested. sfc could take ~30 min to run.

When it's done, reboot and try installing the Matrix Manager again...

Ron

Hi Ron

Many thanks for persevering with me. I did as you said - no change , still get the message saying "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing this software"

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Stephe