^ Wrong, my NEC-7170S is on the Marvell ports.


The problem with SATA optical drives is that Windows (Vista / XP) doesn't install properly. It just can't detect the Intel RAID drivers when using a SATA drive. No problems whatsoever when you use a IDE drive. Even when the SAAT drive is idleing (2 optical drives in the PC) is gives you trouble.

Now when reinstalling Vista, I just disable the secondary SATA controller, install Windows, and enable it again.