Formateing SATA drive

ANNR

ANNR

Active Member
my computer uses a IDE as a master drive but i want to formate a SATA drive in my pc. is it possible?

My power supply has the connectors for the Sata drive but i don't know how to go about it.

With IDE drive all i need is set the jumpers but there is no jumper on the sata drive? what can i do so my pc will not try to boot from the sata drive as i startup my pc?

can i use partition magic to formate a sata drive?

thanks
 
You wouldn't need Partition Magic or any other software since you can go into the disk management tool found in Admistrative Tools>Computer Management to right click on the drive listing and choose the partition and later format options there. The IDE controller when active automatically overrides sata controllers.

Plus you are simply partitioning and formatting the sata drive not OSing it with a master boot record. The cable location of a sata drive decides how the bios will detect it as primary or secondary master or slave. The stardard molex power plug will go right in. The sata cable has a one way fit into the back of the drive as well as on the board. Those plug in with ease.
 
Drive boot order is set in the BIOS. If it does try to boot from the SATA drive (or if you want it to in the future), you can change it here. As for partitioning and formatting, PC Eye has pretty much summed it up.
 
the Sata drive is a master drive in another one of my pc. I was thinking of doing a low level formate and install the xp on it when i put the drive back in the pc that i took it out of. (the drive was infested with viruses thats why i want to just simply formate it.)

Should i do the low level formating? how can i do it so there will be a master boot record? or the master boot record will be there when i install xp?

thanks
 
just one question. are sata drives faster than the IDE drives? which one is better fit to be the master boot drive?
 
The OS installer will create the master boot record(mbr for short). Once you have the drive partitioned and formatted(make sure the virus infected partition is removed first) the XP installer will save time later by simply copying the installation files directly onto the drive when you have it back in the other case.

For a low level format Active Killdisk is a free one you can use for what is called "zero filling" a drive. That's where the drive is completely filled with binary zeros. I hope certainly hope Killdisk is far faster then using the old dos zero filling tools. Those took 4... eeevvveeerrrr... :eek: ! Nothing but all day long(snore... snore.... snore away...).
 
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