Hey I have a Soltek SL-K8M800 mobo (see http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/c... for info on the chipset) I want to put this hard drive in it (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article258-page2.html), on the SATA connector. Can I install that hard drive into the computer (I'll have a second temporary IDE hdd while I copy my files over) as well as a DVD can CD combo drive on the IDE port (primary). Will it all go well, and how do I install XP on a SATA drive? I understand that if the chipset supports SATA natively it doesn't need any floppy disks, am I correct? I'm new to the SATA game so bear with me. Matty PS even though the HDD is SATA II, is it backward compatible with SATA I? Thanks

Yes, you can use that HDD or any other SATA drive you want. Just boot from the Win XP CD out of the BIOS and install the OS. If you're familiar with the process, it's a snap. You don't need any floppies. Good Luck. Sata 1 and 2 are compatible. Keep Smiling It makes them think you're up to something...

"PS even though the HDD is SATA II, is it backward compatible with SATA I?" "Sata 1 and 2 are compatible." The SATA II standard itself is 100% backward compatible with SATA, but some mboard chipsets that support only SATA are not, and the SATA II hard drive must have a jumper installed that makes it SATA compatible in that case. See response 3 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/artic... It has Jumper pins, it that what you mean?

All recent and most older hard drives I've seen have jumper pins. Usually a pair are for a jumper for master, a pair are for a jumper for cable select, and there may be another pair for a jumper to limit the size of the drive the computer's bios can see to a smaller value. The pair I was telling you of are in addition to those, beside those, and only found on some SATA II drives and a jumper on them forces the drive to use SATA mode and max 150mb/s data transfer rate. That article you pointed to seems to be about an SATA drive, not a SATA II drive. It's usually clearly stated on the SATA II drive's label whether it has the jumper pins for that, or it's most certainly stated on the hard drive manufacturer's jumper configuration page for that SATA II drive model. If you get a SATA drive instead of a SATA II drive, you don't need to worry about pins or a jumper for that, but from what I've seen lately most of the locally easily available current drives are SATA II. e.g. Some Samsung SATA II models have the pins for that - some Maxtor do not.