Run winxp on a system with native sata support?

I'm using two different models of Chinese IDE-SATA adapters hooked to hotswap SATA trays and cheap SanDisk 120GB SSD's, which lets me easily swap them to run different operating systems, including WinXP. Actually never had a problem, everything worked out of the box. Globally I've had a way easier experience with them compared to IDE-CF.

Sorry that's just my anecdotal experience. Try another adapter? This is the model I'm mostly using and having no problem with: Ebay Link

I'm running a Velociraptor 300GB on a Sata to Ide adapter from Startech on a P4T533R system. I've used them with SSDs with the same satisfactory experience.

They're more expensive, but all their products do what you hope they'll do: function properly.

Thank you for the feedbacks, I was wondering if it wasn't detected because it has been formatted from windows 7 so it uses a different cluster size? Could it be?
But now that I think I have a sata velociraptor too I will check if it get's detected or not and report back.

I'm using the StarTech adapter for my 98SE/XP build. It randomly won't get detected during POST, but if it makes it that far, it runs fine in Windows.

Haven't narrowed down if the POST issue is the fault of the drive, the adapter, or the motherboard, so I'm not sure if that's enough reason to write it off.

The previous, less expensive adapter I tried was on very thin PCB, and the connectors were very tight. Not a great combination, as you can imagine.

I've tried the second adapter (again bought from China) and it works better, windows sees the partition but when I try to install windows xp it randomly fail to copy files to the hard drive, I tried to use gparted live to clone the partition, fix the mbr but when windows boots says there are problems reading the disk press ctrl+alt+canc, it really seems a no go...

Sometimes very specific combination of motherboard, noname chinese adapter and SSD will lead to such thing. Switching to other SSD also can solve this problem.

I recommend adapters with a Jmicron chip . SinLoon branded ones from Amazon work for me and are under 10 US$ each . They pass SMART info and TRIM commands (with the proper software/OS. I am not sure if Windows 7 will TRIM a drive that isn't on an AHCI controller, but Linux will).

I will try another ssd but honestly I really think it is a no go. I tried to find a SinLoon pata-sata converter but apparently it's not sold on european amazon, my chinese adapter also transfer the smart values of the ssd.
Yesterday I also tried to benchmark the hdd and the sdd, it seems that the bottleneck is the sis eide controller:

What do you think?

Windows xp loads in 2 minutes, even if it's just installed... What do you think, Could I try the velociraptor hard drive? Maybe it will be a bit faster?

whats the IDE Controller used ?
Maybe Transfer Modes are set wrong ?

is it just UDMA66 ?

It is integrated into the southbridge I suppose, it is an ata133, but probably it's an ata100 rebranded from SIS?
The bios says both are in ata133 mode

If you can disable UDMA in your BIOS and force PIO mode 4, consider this 2.5" SATA SSD (+3.5" adapter): Re: mSATA ssd adaptor in old pc

It has been working very well for me so far. One drawback is that mSATA drives are beginning to be more difficult to find and expensive.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2020-09-10, 10:32:

I will try another ssd but honestly I really think it is a no go. I tried to find a SinLoon pata-sata converter but apparently i […]
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I will try another ssd but honestly I really think it is a no go. I tried to find a SinLoon pata-sata converter but apparently it's not sold on european amazon, my chinese adapter also transfer the smart values of the ssd.
Yesterday I also tried to benchmark the hdd and the sdd, it seems that the bottleneck is the sis eide controller:
HDD.png
SDD.png

What do you think?

Windows xp loads in 2 minutes, even if it's just installed... What do you think, Could I try the velociraptor hard drive? Maybe it will be a bit faster?

Considering that the ATA133 port you are using is probably limited by the PCI bus' MAX 133MB/sec total throughput (not counting overhead), your performance looks about right . It is in line with what I was getting with a PCI Promise Ultra133 with a Samsung ATA SSD (using a Jmicron chip).

My guess is your bottleneck is elsewhere, possibly CPU related . If you have a visible disk activity indicator, does it seem to stop flashing/being lit for periods of time during XP boot ? If it does, it coukd be a hint that points at CPU load .

Another thing to look at is services failing to start and having long tiemouts . A look in system event log should show if there are any such issues .

Considering that the ATA133 port you are using is probably limited by the PCI bus

Integrated IDE ports are not connected to PCI bus.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-09-10, 19:52:

Considering that the ATA133 port you are using is probably limited by the PCI bus

Integrated IDE ports are not connected to PCI bus.

You are quite right about that for the 962L southbridge at least (I was still thinking about PIIX).

There is likely a 533MB/sec link between north and south bridges on OP's board . SIS IDE implemention/design may have throughput issues, though

http://www.gregorianbooks.com/pro/article/bar … e/ss51g/651.gif

Apparently SIS962L IDE required software workarounds for optimal performance .

https://www.motherboardpoint.com/threads/shut … de-issue.33449/

Here is a link. https://download.shuttle.eu/Archive_2004/Driv … IS/SiSide41.zip

No idea if it applies to OP's specific setup .

Thank you for the link darry, I will try those drivers and report back.
I do not think the cpu would be the bottleneck, it is the Pentium 4 3.06GHz Hyper Threading (disabled because the mb doesn't really support it), the most powerful I was able to install.
During the windows xp boot the moving loading bar sometimes stuck, it is really slow, I will take a look to the event system log too

The driver adviced were the same as the one installed, I anyway took the chance to install them again, things aren't changed:

I can confirm that udma mode was enabled and it is still so, I really suspect that the sis ide controller just can't keep up, probably the Sis 962L is just a rebrand of 961 which supported ata-100.

I wouldn't jump to conclusion yet. Perhaps SSD is just that horrible at linear read/writes. Looks like Patriot low-end SSDs are quite bad performers for such capacity (no cache, bad NAND?).

Sis 962L is just a rebrand of 961

962L was major upgrade, supporting USB 2.0 and Firewire.