Actually, the hint is correct, but does not apply in all circumstances. The apparent confusion is caused by HDD vendors. Some SATA II HDDs will not fall back to SATA I speed unless they two pins (which pins depends on drive) are bridged by a jumper. Without the jumper present, they drives will attempt to run as SATA II speed regardless of what the SATA controller's capabilities are. When such drive is left without a jumper and then is connected to a SATA I controller, the drive will simply not work. Some of the WD (Western Digital) drives behave like that.

I have also seen drives where the SATA speed is solely controlled by the jumper setting, meaning, you get SATA I or SATA II depending on the jumper setting only and regardless of your controller, as long as the controller can handle selected speed.

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