Sata - driver

PyroMathic · Post by **PyroMathic** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:43 pm

Hi,

Some time ago i got a new pc, Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, whit an Asus P5B main board (ICH8R), but now i am trying to port my OS to this pc, but i am having some difficulties whit the SATA driver..

My OS is completely able to run on a P3, whit mainboard chip PIIX4 (UDMA 33). But some how i just cant find it how i can access the SATA Device's..

Main questions:
Can i still use the same ATAPI, and ATA commands? or does SATA have its own command list.

How can i access the basic IDE i/o reg's, so which normally would be located at 0x1F0 or 0x170?

Is it possible to write 1 driver which is compatible whit ICH5 and ICH8, main board chips, so is the ICH8 back-ward compatible? (it should be, but i already found a couple of things which would suggest ).

Did any one ever try this? any replies are welcome.

Regards.
PyroMathic

carbonBased · Post by **carbonBased** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:53 pm

I would assume that a Serial ATA drive would obey ATA commands...

I'm under the impression that your existing ATA drivers will work on SATA drives.

--Jeff

Pype.Clicker · Post by **Pype.Clicker** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:50 am

afaik, SATA mainly acts as yet-another-extension over ultra dma. That is, you first have to locate your IDE controller on the PCI bus, then you check whether it supports SATA and set things up.

much like UDMA isn't used by default, your SATA disk will still support PATA commands after the POST.

kataklinger · Post by **kataklinger** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:10 am

Pype.Clicker wrote:much like UDMA isn't used by default, your SATA disk will still support PATA commands after the POST.

On some computers you must enable PATA compatibility in BIOS setup.

Candy · Post by **Candy** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:25 pm

kataklinger wrote:
Pype.Clicker wrote:much like UDMA isn't used by default, your SATA disk will still support PATA commands after the POST.
On some computers you must enable PATA compatibility in BIOS setup.

You either set up PATA compatibility or use SATA's native mode, AHCI. You can find loads of docs on it, including stuff like NCQ which is pretty sweet for running systems. (FYI, got an SATA disk with NCQ that you can use for tests if you'd like)

PyroMathic · Post by **PyroMathic** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:50 pm

lo,

thx for the replies, got everything working.

Regards
PyroMathic