Serial ATA Hard Drive - need help

[redrovermine7]

I Built the following system, but I haven't Loaded the OS yet, nor started it, because I want to put a new Serial ATA HD in and use my old WD 200GB IDE HD as secondary storage.

My system:

Proc: Intel P4 640 3.2.GHz 2MB L2 Cache
MoBo: Asus 925XE w/DDr2 slots
Memory:Corsair (ValueRam) 1Gb DDR2 SDRAM (2x1GB) 240 PIN 667 (PC5300)
Graphic Card:ATI X800XL 256MB
XP Professional

Can I plug a SATA HD into the SATA connection on the MoBo then install OS, or do I have to buy a second SATA HD and set up a RAID?
I know very litle about setting up a system with a SATA HD. I know how to Build and set up the old IDE HD systems, and I know I can put the IDE HD as a secondary (E) drive on the IDE channel. Can I run the 1 SATA HD as a SATA drive w/o RAID? Or with only one SATA HD do I have to set the SATA setting in the BIOs to run as IDE? Any information on this subject will be greatly appreciated. I want the small bost from the SATA HD for gaming (cannot afford Raptor yet).

 

[Asus]

You can run SATA with a single drive without going into RAID. You will need drivers on a floppy during Windows install (hit F6 to specific other drivers). They will be on your Motherboard CD probably in a SATA RAID folder or you can get them from Intel's website.

 

[redrovermine7]

Thank you

Thanks Asus :thumbs: