What sata controller for XP

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ChristopherB

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What is the emulated sata controller for Parallels 6.0? I am using XP and want to see if I get a performance update using Sata vs. IDE.

In VirtualBox you can update an existing VM to SATA without reinstall. Is it possible with Parallels?
 
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I made a Windows 7 virtual machine. It defaulted to a SATA virtual hard disk. It's emulating an Intel controller and uses the Microsoft driver. Maybe the Intel driver has better performance?
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller
Microsoft 6/21/2006 6.1.7600.16385
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2821

I have a Windows XP virtual machine which has Hard Disk 1 set to IDE. If I set it to SATA I get a warning that SATA is only supported for Vista or higher and that I would have to install drivers. The virtual machine uses a Boot Camp disk which already had AHCI SATA drivers for 8086/2680 but not for 8086/2821. Setting Hard Disk 1 to SATA causes a BSOD so I set it back to IDE and created Hard Disk 2 on SATA. I restarted and it shows new hardware and driver:
Inter(R) ICH8R/DH/DO SATA AHCI Controller
Intel 6/4/2009 8.9.0.1023
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2821

I shutdown the computer. Set Hard Disk 1 to SATA. Restarted. Still got a BSOD. This also happens when XP is on a virtual hdd instead of a Boot Camp disk. I can't install Windows XP to a SATA drive virtual .hdd either.

The Parallels SATA warning for XP always appears when I make changes to the virtual machine configuration even if I have drivers installed. It's very annoying.

A fresh install of Windows XP doesn't have the drivers so they need to be downloaded and installed. I downloaded and installed "Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager" IATA89ENU.exe. "Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology" iata96enu.exe is a newer version that works as well.

I can't figure out how to switch the startup disk from IDE to SATA without getting a BSOD. This might be similar to the problem reported at: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=104204
 
I added a SATA disk to my existing machine configured as IDE. I was then able to install "Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager" IATA89ENU.exe" which you cannot do without any IDE drives. I was able to user XP Disk Manager to partition and format the drive. Drivers installed. Second drive works fine.

I then closed XP and changed the configuration of my existing XP machine from IDE to SCSI. Upon reboot I get the same bluescreen.

This same set of steps works with virtualbox.

On a whim, I tried changing my IDE drive to SCSI. I get a bluescreen upon bootup doing that also (albeit a different one).

So I did what the annoying popup said and installed the drivers manually and the machine crashes on startup.

Any other ideas? Parallels support is this something that could be looked into? Windows XP still commands almost 50% in market share (median of multiple sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems I'm sure others would like to do this as some of the posted benchmarks seem to make this worthwhile. XP is best suited to many users as a VM as it users the least amount of resources and provides most of what non-gamers want. It does work in Virtualbox - give it a try. It does not work in Parallels 6 - give it a try. You don't need any special configs - a fresh install of XP configured as IDE does the same thing.

Why not just reinstall XP as a user? - many of us have configured and have LOTS of customizations, configured applications, etc and have invested a lot of time making an OS suited to us for Parallels.
 
You state that you " I downloaded and installed "Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager" IATA89ENU.exe. "Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology" iata96enu.exe is a newer version that works as well."

How do you do this if you have to have installed XP to install them?
 
I meant I couldn't install XP to a new VM that had Hard Disk 1 set to SATA. I have a few other XP VM's that have XP already installed (hard disk 1 is set to IDE in those cases). The problem we're having is switching hard disk 1 from IDE to SATA.
 
You stated your Windows 7 detected the SATA controller:

Inter(R) ICH8R/DH/DO SATA AHCI Controller
Intel 6/4/2009 8.9.0.1023
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2821

I downloaded and installed the latest "Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager" IATA89ENU.exe from Intel. I then found the folder that has the files for the floppy F6 during XP install. I created a floppy image before and copied the required files to it. When prompted by XP install I Hit "S" and then selected Inter(R) ICH8R/DH/DO SATA AHCI Controller. It then let me format the disk and when Install reboot the system to continue - blue screen.

This is doing a FRESH install of XP.

Can anyone advise how to get XP installed with SATA working?


I'd still MUCH PREFER that Parallels allow me to add a secondary SATA drive (which works fine in the first 6.0 public release of Parallels), change controller type for existing IDE drives and then be able to boot as the drivers are there and the secondary SATA drive added works fine. Again this trick works with VirtualBox so something must be set or hard-coded in the parallels disk image that needs to change.
 
Problem 1 (discussed above):

For Windows XP, we can install SATA drivers and get SATA working for non-boot drives but not for the boot drive.


Problem 2 (solved):

I was unable to get SCSI drivers installed at all for any disk. The device is a "BusLogic MultiMaster PCI SCSI Host Adapter". I see error code 28 in the device status. Actually I found a solution while installing Windows XP to a 2nd hard disk. The SCSI drivers are included with Parallels Tools and are installed if a hard disk is connected to the SCSI bus.

So for my first Windows XP installation, I just had to remove Parallels Tools, restart, re-install Parallels Tools while a drive was located on the SCSI bus (the first time I installed Parallels Tools, I had no SCSI hard disks) then restart. The Device name then gets changed from "SCSI Controller" to "Parallels SCSI Host Adapter". Booting from SCSI works fine once the Parallels driver is installed.

I think Parallels Tools should install the SCSI driver (and SATA driver) even if no SCSI or SATA virtual hard disks are connected so that this problem doesn't occur.
 
Once you found the workaround for the SCSI crash, were you able to then convert the boot drive to SATA using the second drive as SATA trick? The drivers for SATA are clearly there or the second drive wouldn't work.
 
Nope. SATA for Windows XP boot disk doesn't work (BSOD) in Parallels 6 even if SCSI and IDE and SATA are all working for other disks. I had 6 disks and 3 CD/DVDs running at once. Some IDE, SCSI, and SATA. The Boot disk has to be IDE or SCSI.
 
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