My SATA is stuck in IDE mode (I think)...

[robx46]

Just heard about AHCI mode and wondered if my barracuda 7200.10 320gb sata 2 drive was functioning as well as it could, as it did benchmark slower than it did in reviews. Then I checked in my bios, and sure enough my sata is running in "Native, then IDE" mode. Although I do have the option to switch to "AHCI".
I chose AHCI and, as I suspected from reading up on this, I could not boot when I did this.

Then just yesterday, I got a bios upgrade that just came out for my Intel DG965ry board (ICH8).
Ironically, this update just happened to have information for me on just this topic.
When I restarted with my new bios, then highlighted that "IDE/AHCI" option, I then had a note along the right side saying.....
"AHCI mode is only avaliable for the Vista OS".

What? Why only the vista OS? Anybody else get this bios update? There must be something to this.
Even when I tried to re-install windows anyhow in AHCI mode, my HD simply wasn't detected. So I can't even do the "add the sata drivers during install" thing that is often talked about.
But why would this chipset/bios only allow AHCI in vista and not XP?

In device manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, my first 2 entries are titled...
Intel(r) ICH8 2 Port Serial ATA Controller - 2825
then....
Intel(r) ICH8 4 Port Serial ATA Controller - 2820

Not sure why there are 2 entries, and I'm not sure what the "2 Port" and "4 Port" means, nor the different numbers at the end.
But they do say "Serial ATA Controller", which is maybe a good indication that my drive is recieving proper support. I don't know.

In closing, I guess I just want to know if all my features, such as NCQ and "Hot Plug" are enabled and functioning.
And why would AHCI only be avaliable for Vista? Is there something different with my mobo/chipset that I don't need AHCI?

I have run a few benchmark/detect type progs, and I get frustrated because my drive is always detected as IDE or ATA, ect. But make no mistake, I definitely have a Sata II drive, with proper Sata cables, and my mobo has full Sata II support, I did remove the jumper, ect.

Very confusing.....

 

[Codesmith]

Is that the same as having your Car stuck in vehicle mode?

Sorry to make fun of your title.

The funny thing is all modern hard drive and optical drives are IDE, which is just another way of saying ATA. The only drives that are not IDE are SCSI.

Another funny things is that the only time people use the term IDE is when they actually mean something entirely different.

Such as SATA vs IDE (both SATA and PATA are IDE devices)
Or RAID move vs IDE mode (both are still IDE)

What they really mean is XXX vs other than XXX.

So your BIOS options probably translate to AHCI vs non-AHCI.

In fact they might even translate to something like limitted AHCI to full ACHI.

Don't ask me what they really mean, I didn't design the board, program the BIOS or write the manual.

---
Now lets get back to your specific concern.

1) AHCI has no effect on the performance or features of your SATA drive. The features you mentioned are features of virtually all SATA controllers, most of which don't use AHCI. Or at least not the AHCI that requires an Intel Matrix chipset.

2) You can't install XP with AHCI enabled because you are not pressing F6 and providing XP with the drivers that will let it work with an AHCI enabled controller.

3) "AHCI mode is only available for the Vista OS" probably means that Intel has created AHCI drivers for Vista, but not for XP. You can't press F6 and load drivers if they don't exist yet.

4) Finally WTF is AHCI! I have no clue what AHCI brings to the table that is in any way new or different.

I don't blame you for being confused.

Intel confusingly makes the following statement which seems to imply blatantly false notion that anyone without a Matrix RAID chipset can't use NCQ or hot swap.

Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to enable advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing and hot plug.

Note: AHCI requires Intel® Matrix Storage Manager software and is built into chipsets with the following controller hubs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a hardware mechanism that allows software to communicate with Serial ATA devices such as host bus adaptors. The specification details a system memory structure for computer hardware vendors, in order to transfer data between system memory and the device.

The AHCI protocol was announced by Intel in a May 2003 press release.

Note: Enabling AHCI mode in BIOS may cause problems with any already installed Operating System, and may require re-installing the OS. Microsoft Windows requires a separate driver diskette for installation on AHCI-enabled disks, using the F6 Installation method. Failure to do so will spawn a 0x7B BSOD STOP error. Switching to AHCI requires installing new drivers before changing BIOS settings. Some later versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2 include limited AHCI/SATA support

Note: Enabling AHCI mode in BIOS may also cause windows set up failure, with the according error message "set up could not detect hard disk drive...". To fix this error, disable AHCI in your BIOS.

Or from INTEL.

Advanced Host Controller Interface Specification
for Serial ATA
The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) specification describes the register-level interface for a Host Controller for Serial ATA 1.0a and Serial ATA II. The specification includes a description of the hardware/software interface between system software and the host controller hardware. This specification is intended for hardware component designers, system builders and device driver (software) developers.

Implementation of the Advanced Host Controller Interface Specification requires a license from Intel. Contributors of the Advanced Host Controller Interface Specification for Serial ATA have signed the Advanced Host Controller Interface Specification for Serial ATA - Contributors Agreement in order to be licensed to use and implement this Specification. This Contributors Agreement provides Contributors with a reciprocal, royalty-free license to certain intellectual property rights from Intel and other Contributors for their products that are compliant with the licensed versions of the Advanced Host Controller Interface Specification for Serial ATA.

Intel intends to continue including suitable inputs, comments and suggestions from contributors to refine and update the Advanced Host Controller Interface Specification through a series of specification releases that will be marked as being Revision 1.x of the specification. Licensing of the applicable final specification of the AHCI Specification (As defined in the Contributors Agreement) allows the implementation of both discrete and integrated compliant AHCI host controllers. Licensing of the applicable draft version of the applicable specification level (Also defined in the Contributors Agreement) will allow the implementation of compliant, discrete AHCI host controllers only.

The latest revision of the specification is Revision 1.1. Subsequent Revision 1.x levels of the specification will be completed by Intel at its discretion as time and circumstances permit.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

AHCI is Intel's standard for allowing SATA software drivers to communicate with a hardware chip. The standard is meant to be licensed from Intel by other manufacturers if they want to write an AHCI driver or produce an AHCI chip or both.

AHCI is to be used instead of the standardized IDE protocol. Under IDE protocol, a SATA (or PATA) driver communicates with a hardware chip using the same standards as have been used in 32-bit OS's for many years now.

The problem is that SATA supports two features (native command queueing/NCQ, and hot-swap) that cannot be used when communicating with the hardware chip using IDE protocol, because the IDE protocol does not support those features.

Intel's latest series of south bridge chips, the ICH6, ICH7, and ICH8, are dual-mode chips. They can allow the driver to communicate with the chip using IDE protocol or AHCI protocol. When using AHCI protocol, NCQ and hot-swap be available if the connected drive supports those features. The aforementioned south bridge chips can be switched between the two modes using a setting in the system BIOS.

Windows XP (and other versions) have a generic driver on their installation CD for any south bridge chip that supports standard IDE protocol. Windows typically installs this driver silently during Windows XP setup so that it can boot off of a hard drive connected to that controller. If the Intel south bridge chips are set to IDE mode when installing Windows XP, this is what happens. However, once Windows is fully installed, no NCQ or hot-swap support is present because the driver will be communicating with the south bridge chip in IDE mode.

To use AHCI, set the south bridge chip to AHCI mode, and install Windows XP, using F6 to install Intel's AHCI driver. This is the same process as if you were going to boot Windows off any other non-IDE controller, such as a RAID or SCSI card. Once Windows is installed using this method, NCQ and hot-swap will be available if the hard drive supports those features.

I don't know why your BIOS is claiming that AHCI requires Vista -- it doesn't. Intel has AHCI drivers for all their south bridge chips for Windows 2000, XP, 2003.

It is possible to change the mode from IDE to AHCI without reinstalling Windows. Follow the procedure at the top of the forum entitled "FAQ: Switching Storage Controllers Without Reinstalling Windows". You will need to use the 2-controller work-around procedure since the south bridge can't be in both modes at the same time.

Other manufacturers who support NCQ and hot-swap are not necessarily using AHCI -- AHCI is Intel's proprietary (though Intel wants it to become a standard) protocol for driver->hardware communication. Other manufacturers are using their own proprietary protocol -- for example Silicon Image chips typically support NCQ and hot-swap, as do Promise cards, etc. Though they're not using the AHCI protocol, they still require their own driver that communicates with the hardware in a fashion other than standard IDE. And therefore they would need to have a driver loaded with F6 if you wanted to install Windows on one of their controllers and boot from there.

Also, most other manufacturer's SATA chips are not dual-mode like Intel's are. The aforementioned Silicon Image and Promise chips operate only with their driver, not with a standard IDE driver. On the other hand, NVidia's NF4 south bridge operates with a standard IDE driver, with no means of changing the mode, and no support for hot-swap or NCQ when using the generic IDE driver. (It does support these features when using Nvidia's IDE driver, which is using proprietary extensions.)

I hope this clears a few things up.

 

[robx46]

2) You can't install XP with AHCI enabled because you are not pressing F6 and providing XP with the drivers that will let it work with an AHCI enabled controller.

Actually, with bios in AHCI (not IDE) mode, it doesn't even detect the hard drive, so I can't do the "F6" option anyhow and I can't even do a windows install (or anything) in AHCI mode.

Basically, it looks like I'm stuck with what they call IDE mode as opposed to AHCI.
I only brought this up because I kept reading all these people talking about how those with sata drives need to enable AHCI to get the best performance out of their hard drive.
And that is why I've been on a mission to figure it out. I pay good money for my hardware and of course I want to make sure I'm getting everything I can out of it.

So I guess I need to let it go.
I'm definitely not too informed about the details of hard drives like this. I just get a good one and hope it works. I don't know much about raid, nor do I use it. Never heard of AHCI until the other day.
I'm more familiar with the hardware I like to upgrade that really matters for performance, like the cpu, mobo, graphics card, memory. Hard drives? Yeah, I like to have a good one, but its more or less just like closet space to me. Not very exciting hardware!

Although I did have an 80gb barracuda sata 1.5 before this, I was hoping to get maybe a bit of a performance boost, aside from having much more size, such as going from 8mb cache to 16mb and going from sata I to sata II.
But space was the main reason for the upgrade, of course.

In summary, I guess I shouldn't worry? Nothing does seem wrong. Everything is running as usual with just more space to play with. But wanted to make sure I was getting all I could out of my drive.
Thanks for the response.

 

[Codesmith]

On the other hand, NVidia's NF4 south bridge operates with a standard IDE driver, with no means of changing the mode, and no support for hot-swap or NCQ.

I hot swap on a daily basis using my (AMD) NF4 chipset's SATA ports and loaded XP SP2 without pressing F6 on an unmodified CD. I also have NCQ support (which I don't use).

The limitations you mention are definitely not universal.

 

[rwpritchett]

I was wondering if you SATA controller has anything else connected to it that can't handle the AHCI. For example, boards with the JMicron integragted controller have two SATA and 1 ATA connector being controlled by the chip. If you have something like an optical drive connected it might throw fits.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

The NVidia NF4 won't support the hot-swap or NCQ when using Windows generic IDE driver. Once the NVidia driver is loaded it will, probably because the NVidia driver is using proprietary extensions to the IDE protocol to support those features.

Intel must have made the decision to use a new protocol (AHCI) rather than use proprietary extensions like Nvidia.

I edited my previous post to more clearly say this.

Actually, with bios in AHCI (not IDE) mode, it doesn't even detect the hard drive, so I can't do the "F6" option anyhow and I can't even do a windows install (or anything) in AHCI mode.

Yes, you can. When Windows text-mode setup first comes up (very first thing) it will say "Press F6 to use a manufacturer-supplied driver disk". Press F6 at this point. Windows will then proceed to load all it's built-in drivers for other disk controllers, scan for them, not find them, and then finally tell you that "Setup could not detect any mass storage controllers in your computer", and to press "S" to supply a manufacturer driver disk. Press "S" at this point with the Intel ICH8 driver disk in the floppy drive. Setup will present you with a list of drivers (only 4 are displayed but there may be more. Use the down arrow key to scroll down, even though there are no scroll bars present). Choose the Intel AHCI driver for the ICH8 (not RAID mode drivers). Windows will then detect the SATA drive and allow you to install Windows on it.

 

[robx46]

Yes, you can. When Windows text-mode setup first comes up (very first thing) it will say "Press F6 to use a manufacturer-supplied driver disk". Press F6 at this point. Windows will then proceed to load all it's built-in drivers for other disk controllers, scan for them, not find them, and then finally tell you that "Setup could not detect any mass storage controllers in your computer", and to press "S" to supply a manufacturer driver disk. Press "S" at this point with the Intel ICH8 driver disk in the floppy drive. Setup will present you with a list of drivers (only 4 are displayed but there may be more. Use the down arrow key to scroll down, even though there are no scroll bars present). Choose the Intel AHCI driver for the ICH8 (not RAID mode drivers). Windows will then detect the SATA drive and allow you to install Windows on it.

Yeah, one problem with that. Actually three problems with that.
A) My mobo only came with CD's for driver installation, no floppy's.
B) I don't have a floppy drive and haven't for years, nor do I own ANY floppy disks.
C) There are no drivers on my mobo installation CD, just the chipset exe, which loads the drivers.

Forgot to mention that, but I thought the point was moot anyhow. But maybe I could load via F6.
Can I do a repair install? In other words, can I do this without wiping out my HD which I just finally got everything and more onto it?

Again, I don't have a floppy drive, nor floppy driver installation disks. Am I screwed or what?

I heard mentions of slipstreaming drivers onto the XP disk. Not sure if that would work, never "slipstreamed" before.

But again, no driver files on my CD's...
So how the heck do I even find the right driver to slipstream if that will even work?
Did a search for sata drivers, found nothing, apparently they are usually on mobo disks, not mine though.
My XP Pro CD does have SP2 built in, it is one of the newer microsoft XP Pro releases, if not the newest. Would that have any sata drivers? What would the name of them be?

And that brings me to the procedure to do it without reinstalling windows. Like I just said, I don't even have a driver to use. Need to find that first, somehow, somewhere!
Also, I did read about this method, but I got totally confused and when it comes to hard drives and hard drive controllers, 2 controller work-arounds, ect...that is a little out of my league and I get a little lost.

I will read it again and see if it makes more sense, but I'm not even sure where my hard drive controllers are. I'm guessing they are those 2 and 4 port Serial ATA controllers I found under device manager? I don't know...

Sounds like I'm screwed, though as not having the driver or a floppy drive will make any method impossible.

Why does this have to be so difficult? XP can't do an update to better handle this? Especially considering the popularity of sata now. And why did neither my mobo or hard drive itself come without any resources or an ounce of info on this?

I'll read that FAQ again, but I don't want to screw something up. I'll report back if I can make any progress on this.
I would like to get those features enabled.

 

[Codesmith]

Windows XP SP2 doesn't have just one generic IDE driver it has a total of 5 different generic IDE drivers each compatible with different sets of hardware, plus one generic SCSI/RAID driver.

So you just because the generic Intel IDE drivers don't support a feature on an Intel motherboard doesn't say anything about the 4 other IDE drivers.

PS you can view the drivers with the nlite utility, as well as remove then or add specific "F6" drivers to the CD.

Often if you all all possible "F6" drivers for your motherboard you don't need to use as many tricks if you latter decide to switch controllers.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Hey CodeSmith,

Yes, you're correct that Windows has other IDE drivers, but the one I'm talking about is the "Standard Dual Channel IDE Controller", which should work with any IDE controller. The others may work for certain hardware as well, but I don't think any of them will allow NCQ and hot-swap support on any chipset, much less Intel's which must be in AHCI mode to support it.

I will definitely have to examine the nlite utility in greater detail ... it sounds like a great tool. I downloaded it one time and kind of glossed over it, and never ended up using it. But a Windows XP SP2 CD with a lot of drivers pre-installed sure would be nice.

robx46,

To install Windows drivers for the storage controller at installation, you must have a floppy drive with the driver floppy disk prepared, or put the drivers on a slipstreamed CD like CodeSmith is talking about.

The drivers are probably not on your motherboard CD. That's typical with many motherboard companies, but in general, I never use the drivers that the hardware comes with anyway -- I always download the latest drivers from the Internet. All you need to do is go to Intel's site, look up the ICH8 chipset, and they will have a download for the Intel Matrix Storage Manager (contains both RAID and AHCI drivers). They have both a Windows-based installer and a floppy creator.

I would download the floppy creator, unzip/unpack it, and get access to the driver files directly. Then use those to make a slipstream CD with nlite. That will be the easiest method if you don't have a floppy drive.

The procedure in the FAQ is complex, but it's the only way I know to switch the boot controller without reinstalling Windows. If there's another way, I haven't come across it.

 

[wolfman140]

I was wondering if you SATA controller has anything else connected to it that can't handle the AHCI. For example, boards with the JMicron integragted controller have two SATA and 1 ATA connector being controlled by the chip. If you have something like an optical drive connected it might throw fits.

Hey Pritchett,
My GA-DS3 is the setup of which you speak. I use AHCI enabled and install drivers via F6. My raptor has the ability of NCQ, and so do those JMicron ports when in AHCI mode (so says the manual). Except I could never access NCQ, nor did HD Sentinel worked when I had them in those ports. However, I always had an IDE CD-ROM in the IDE plug that like you said, is also run by the JMicron chip. Do you think if I bought an IDE to SATA converter and plugged it in the Intel SATA ports, that this would make a performance difference and maybe not make the hdd's so wacky?
(Sorry for the minor hijack thread)

 

[robx46]

Just learned something VERY interesting, guys.

I was able to talk my way into a free hardware tech support chat with intel, and they gave me some info that they definitely should be posting on their site.

First of all, remember how I mentioned my new bios update (just released a few days ago) has a note in the bios saying that AHCI mode is only for Vista? I know people, including myself, thought that wasn't correct.

But it is correct. My board is an intel DG965ry, with the ICH8 and of course the 965 chipset.
They told me that this board/chipset could NOT, under any circumstances, load sata drivers to enable things like NCQ or Hot Plugging.

Why? I asked. They said because new boards are really gearing up for Vista rather than catering to XP.
Yeah, I can run XP fine, but they are looking ahead with these boards and bios updates.

Well, OK. I guess that explains everything that has been confusing me here. Wish there could of been some documentation about all this.

Wasn't planning on upgrading to vista for a while, well after its released. But since I have an extra sata drive with all my stuff also on that drive, why not give it a shot? See what happens.

Read up on RC1, and of course it had its bugs and compatibility issues, but for those systems that are compatible with it (I ran a vista utility compatibility check program and my system is 100% ready for vista), the reports seem to be that it is good enough to keep on their system.

Then after looking into grabbing RC1, I read that they just released RC2 a few days ago, which supposedly has a ton more bug fixes and is quite an improvement even from RC1.
So it just might not be a disaster to install RC2! I wouldn't if I only had my one hard drive to work with, but it can't hurt to put it on the other.
I think I can get a copy of RC2, so I'll give it a shot.

Anyhow, if anybody else with a newer intel chipset/board like mine has this issue, the answer for them might just be a simple "no, you can't run in AHCI mode or install sata drivers unless you have vista".
Wish I would of known this a couple days ago, but at least I know.

 

[wolfman140]

Wow...Hey...that really sucks. I don't have the message, and I use JMIcron ports but have the 965p chipset. So I imagine the same rules apply. Even on the Intel pots when I enabled Native. I mean, I'm not mad I can't use NCQ...most people say to turn it off. But still...I've been trying to find a solution to this for the last week or so with no success. Perhaps this is why. That's stupid.
I have two hdds as well and I installed Vista on one before...But Vista put some files on my XP hdd that messed with things a bit so I got rid of it. RC2 much better you say? Hm...

 

[robx46]

Wow...Hey...that really sucks. I don't have the message, and I use JMIcron ports but have the 965p chipset. So I imagine the same rules apply. Even on the Intel pots when I enabled Native. I mean, I'm not mad I can't use NCQ...most people say to turn it off. But still...I've been trying to find a solution to this for the last week or so with no success. Perhaps this is why. That's stupid.
I have two hdds as well and I installed Vista on one before...But Vista put some files on my XP hdd that messed with things a bit so I got rid of it. RC2 much better you say? Hm...

Yeah, it sucks right NOW. However, you probably feel the same, it means better things in the long run, in the future.
Sucks because I have XP now, but will be nice when I have Vista.

So I was half happy to hear this news, because it meant that my board and the updates they are working on for the board are really geared for the future and vista.
I'm not used to have compatibility issues because my hardware is "too new", but I guess that is a nice problem to have.

After all, I did get this board with the intention of having it be very upgradeable and useful for a while down the road.
My board was really designed for the Core 2 Duo, even though Pent D's and P4's are compatible.
I recently bought the Pent D 945 Presler (3.4ghz). However, I bought that and the mobo with the Core 2 Duo and the DDR2 800 upgradeability factor in mind.
Perhaps a year from now or so, I am planning on getting a nice Core 2 Duo at hopefully much cheaper prices, as well as the DDR2 800 RAM at some point (have 2 gigs of DDR2 533 now, which is the minimum for the board!, Phew!).
So my mobo purchase was all about the future for me anyhow, so I'm not too upset. And this HD driver deal is a minor thing anyhow, I guess the read/write rates aren't affected.

But still, like yourself, I at least want to be able to use all the features I paid for, even if I don't "need" them.
However, the guy I talked to said that Vista will (and this is obvious) be much more friendly to sata/sata 2 drives than XP, thus maybe getting better performance out of them than you ever could in XP.
And issues such as the one in this thread will be non-existent. Like he told me, you just enable AHCI, then everything is taken care of for you (no loading drivers or doing anything manually).

Vista should be great like that, not just for HD's, but for all hardware installation as time goes on.

I wonder how vista files got onto your other hard drive?
What I'm going to do is completely remove my new hard drive and only plug in my old sata drive. I didn't think an issue like you mentioned would happen, but good to know it might as now I definitely will totally remove my new HD so Vista can't get its hands on it.

Btw, I only "heard" RC2 is much better than RC1. Never tried either, am about to try RC2. When I get it installed in a bit, I can report my own comments. I just would be cautious trying this if I didn't have an extra HD or didn't have the drive backed up.
So I'm not really endorsing RC2 as an every day OS until I can try it for myself on my other drive.

 

[wolfman140]

I know, I have no idea how or why Vista gets files onto my XP hdd...it didn't make any sense...But it does. They get hidden just in the root directory, and they stay there even after you format Vista because you get the choice of booting into Vista still after post...So you have to get some silly program to get rid of them for you. It was kinda a pain in the ass for sure. So I still see RC1 is available for download...I have RC1 installation dvd laying around, can I upgrade to RC2 after its instlled?
*Edit* PS...so theoretically I can install Vista on my Sata without having to install drivers with a floppy/F6?

 

[Codesmith]

robx46 - that sucks, but

NCQ isn't that great for home users. Chances are you would disabled it if you had it.

CQ lets the hard drive stop and reorder requests for maximum efficiency. There is an added delay but for web servers the efficiency pays off.

Home users typically only get the delay with no benefit.

Check the benchmarks at www.storagereview.com they compare the drives with CQ enabled and disabled for a reason.

As far as hot swapping if you have an external SATA enclosure you can buy a cheap (<$20) SATA card with hot-swapping and external ports. If you don't have an external SATA device you don't need to hot swap.

BTW what are your HDTach numbers and what are the numbers you were expecting?

----
SomeJoe7777 - I did some checking and it looks like XP uses the same standard IDE controllers after a fresh install.

Which is odd because nlite shows the XP CD contains the following bundles of storage drivers. And if you remove the wrong family XP will no longer recognize your hard drive.

What I suspect is that the controller drivers used for installing/booting are sometimes different from those used when XP is running.

Here are the families of storage drivers you can remove with nlite.

SCSI/RAID
ALI IDE Bus Driver
CMD IDE Bus Driver
Intel IDE BUS Driver
Toshiba IDE Bus Driver
VIA IDE Bus Driver

These seem to be sets of drivers and you can see the device names flash across the bottom of the screen (unless you removed the driver set to speed up the install)
---

Also , I have two SATA cards one Sil3112 the other Sil3114, both require F6 to install.

I can move XP from an IDE controller to the Sil3112 by simply installing the XP drivers first.

I cannot do the same for the 3114.

My best guess is that the install/boot drivers for the 3112 are the same as its XP drivers, but the 3114 has different install/boot and XP drivers.

---
Furthermore if I press F6 when installing to the IDE controller and load the 3114 drivers even without the card connected, I can latter move to the 3114 controller no problem.

So I add all the F6 drivers for every controller no matter which of my systems I am installing to.

---
Again my best explanation is the the install/boot drivers and the drivers used when XP is running are sometime the same, but are often different.

Especially for controller drivers that support more advanced features.