I have a ASUS P5KPL/EPU mainboard in a computer that is running a modified version of Windows XP SP3. It's BIOS is at the latest version (v404). I've recently only noticed that the HDD was set to transfer data at UDMA mode 5, despite the fact that the HDD is indeed a SATA HDD (Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS). I'm unable to install the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers, as the installer keeps giving the 'Your computer does not meet the minimum requirements' message. That happened, despite the fact that my mainboard does contain a supported chip (An ICH7 chip).

The driver that is currently installed was from ASUS (Dated 05-Aug-09 lol.). Well, I'm still fine with living with old drivers (Which I'm sure that anyone of us who is computer literate won't do) if that error was caused by OEM hardware. But what truly irritated me was this: Further checking revealed that the ICH7 SATA controller has been operating in IDE emulation mode, but my BIOS doesn't seem to have an option to switch between AHCI/SATA and IDE modes. D: The Intel Chipset Identification utility reveals that the I/O controller is 'Intel® 82801GB/GR I/O controller hub (ICH7/ICH7R) SATA Controller found in IDE mode'. The device manager also shows the 'classic' dual-IDE controller configuration like what my Pentium 3 had. Instead of having only one entry under the HDD controller category like most of the other modern systems I've come across.

When I mentioned the 'classic' dual-IDE controller configuration, this was what I saw. Intel® ICH7 Family Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 27DF Intel® N10/ICH7 Family Serial ATA Storage Controller - 27C0 Primary IDE Channel Primary IDE Channel Secondary IDE Channel Secondary IDE Channel It's unusual, because there is only one ATA/IDE port on my mainboard, and my optical drive is connected to it. The HDD appears to be connected under the first 'Primary IDE channel' and the optical drive appears to be connected to the lower 'Primary IDE channel'. The BIOS reports something like this at bootup too: 'SATA 1: IDE HDD', followed by the HDD's data. So what does this mean? Is my mainboard another one of those ASUS mainboards that had it's AHCI/IDE mode option disabled?

Description: Intel(R) ICH7M/MDH SATA AHCI Controller Driver Installer. Windows 7 32bit, Windows Vista 32bit, Windows XP 32bit Download. Driver Version: 11. County Of Riverside Medically Indigent Services Program. Download the latest version of Intel 8 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller drivers. Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP File.

Am I doomed to be stuck without the benefits of the AHCI mode forever? (Will I miss out a lot anyway? I heard that I would only lose NCQ support) I heard that the ASUS P5K mainboard suffered from an issue like this because of some kind of licensing issue, and that a solution was to flash the mainboard with the BIOS meant for the P5KR. Which is out of the question for me as the P5KR has a rather different configuration from the ASUS P5KPL/EPU. EDIT: I should probably mention that my goal was to get this system to have updated SATA drivers, if possible. I care about that as the HDD seems to running a little slow compared to my ex-Pentium 3 (Which had a real IDE HDD that was about 5 years older and 5 times smaller lol.). Edited September 2, 2011 by sp193.