Computer help.....SATA drive problems

[Brett]

Okay, I picked up a new WD 250 GB SATA drive today. Brought it home thinking that it'll be nice and easy to get this setup as my primary drive. Yeah, that thought went right out the window about 15 minutes later. Anyway, my problem is that my mobo won't even detect it. Found that on XP install, I have to hit F6 to install third party drivers. So, I go ahead and download that latest and greatest from ASUS. I go ahead and run the XP setup. It's let me install the drivers and proceed further, but then when it comes to choose which drive I want to install on (and I have removed my other drives, so it's just the new one) setup says that it cannot access the drive. So, onto more trouble shooting. I flash the BIOS with the latest update, thinking that it might be a problem in there. Didn't help. I try installing all the RAID controllers for my mobo with my other drives reinstalled so that I can try to set it up as a slave in XP. Didn't help. Tried playing with settings in the BIOS just to try and get it to detect the drive at all. Nothing.

So where to next people?

Here's my setup.

AMD AthlonXP 2000+
Asus A7V8X motherboard (onboard SATA controller)
Wester Digital Caviar 250 GB SATA 2 drive
Kingston PC3200 768 MB RAM
Older Nvidia GeForce 2 MX400

Please help me out! I'm going nuts with this! I'm ready to just take it to someone else (I've been working on it for hours, checking all sorts of other forums trying to figure this out.)

:sick:

 

[phillippi]

When it boots does it find the drive at that time before xp tries to load? Generally it will flash the RAID info before loading XP. Did you choose in Bios that you wanted RAID SATA and not RAID ATA. Also do you have the Serial HD in the PRI_SATA1 slot?

I know these are basic questions, but it doesnt hurt to ask.

 

[Herzog]

Double check and make sure you have the right controller drivers on hand for the XP install. When I did mine, I had to double check what I had and go download the proper drivers.

SATA drives rule, but they can be a biatch

 

[Milner]

OK, off on a small tangent....
I want to get an external HD to use for photos and music....Plan on a 180-250gb. What should I look for to make it the simple/easy setup? Because I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about and I don't want to have to figure it out
Thanks
Resume puter geek talk now

 

[Brett]

I am not sure what Asus was thinking, but the drivers and such for the SATA controller aren't even loaded into the BIOS. There's not even a way to enable the serial channel on this thing. I'm about to call them and find out which BIOS versions I need or if there is something else I need to download....cause this sucks!

 

[Brett]

OK, off on a small tangent....
I want to get an external HD to use for photos and music....Plan on a 180-250gb. What should I look for to make it the simple/easy setup? Because I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about and I don't want to have to figure it out
Thanks
Resume puter geek talk now

Well, don't get a SATA drive then

 

[JoeT]

OK, off on a small tangent....
I want to get an external HD to use for photos and music....Plan on a 180-250gb. What should I look for to make it the simple/easy setup? Because I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about and I don't want to have to figure it out
Thanks
Resume puter geek talk now

Those are easy! Firewire drives are faster but USB drives work great. Go to www.compusa.com for pretty pics and prices.

 

[Chiksic]

I don't know if this is going to be applicable at all because I forgot the terminology so I could be way off base. But, back when I bought my new 180GB drive I had many of the same problems with XP not recognizing it. After a lot of trouble, I discovered that it was because my mobo was not like... something like pci3300 compatable... I know that's not right but I know there was a P in there and something 3000. So I had to buy an adapter to connect it through. Then when going through the XP set up I had to hit the F6 key and install the adapter thing then it would recognize the hard drive. BUT! More problems. There was something about XP not recognizing drives over 120GB so I had to partition my drive and it now works totally great. I don't know if I had to partition it before I bought the adapter or after... this was over a year ago. Then shortly after my mobo died so I got a new spiffy one so I don't need the adapter any more. I still have the adapter sitting in my mom's garage in Orem, though, and I might be coming up on Friday so if that's the prob I could give it to ya.

 

[Mr.Chevy]

On SATA you shouldnt have to hit the F6 key to install the adapter. Make sure it is not set up as a RAID in the Bios and make sure that the SATA is turned on in the bios and that the SATA is set as a boot up item. This is what i did to install my SATA drive and i didnt have any problems at all. I have a new MSI board that kicks a$$ http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K7N2GM-V&class=mb

 

[troutbum]

I had trouble with my ABIT mobo as well, I was trying to instal a sata RAID array(2 raptors) as my primary HD. I had to get a new SATA driver to make it work. Sucked, but I love it now that it is working.

 

[Rusted]

go to http://support.asus.com and download your manual. I am too lazy to type it out for you from their PDF. But look at 5.5.4. Also from the asus site get the Promise driver. I think that your F6 approach was the right way, but you may have the wrong driver

 

[Bubba Jr]

if you would just lift the restraining order I would come over to help.

 

[phillippi]

If you are sick of that 250 SATA drive, I will give you a 200mbATA and 120 ATA as a trade. There no more problems....

 

[Brett]

Okay, I talked to Asus, supposedly got the right drivers....so I go to install XP again and I can get all the way to where setup formats the drive, then needs to restart the computer. However, here it asks for the disk again with the drivers on it, so I hit enter (disk is in the floppy drive) and now it's saying it's the wrong disk. Worked just a few minutes before, but now it's gone retarded. I am hating this. And how do I create a partition larger than 137 GB???


EDIT: At least it now shows the drive in windows! haha

 

[Brett]

Okay, got XP to create a large partition (250 GB).....now should I even try to install XP on it and make this new SATA drive my main drive or should I give up and call it even and just use it as my secondary drive?

 

[Herzog]

Okay, got XP to create a large partition (250 GB).....now should I even try to install XP on it and make this new SATA drive my main drive or should I give up and call it even and just use it as my secondary drive?

Might as well go main. I partioned my sata drive into 3 seperate partitions at about 70Gb each, just to keep things organized. OS and other programs on the 1st partition; Large programs, games, and other utilites on the 2nd partition; file / video / music / image storage on the 3rd.

But that's how I do it... no real need to do it like that.

 

[phillippi]

make it your main. Its faster then ATA133 by a small amount, but every bit of speed i like to get.

 

[Brett]

Might as well go main. I partioned my sata drive into 3 seperate partitions at about 70Gb each, just to keep things organized. OS and other programs on the 1st partition; Large programs, games, and other utilites on the 2nd partition; file / video / music / image storage on the 3rd.

But that's how I do it... no real need to do it like that.

That's what I am thinking as well. I'm just letting windows format it right now. I made another disc with the drivers on it, so hopefully when I try to install XP Pro on the drive, it won't freak out again.

 

[Chiksic]

That's what I am thinking as well. I'm just letting windows format it right now. I made another disc with the drivers on it, so hopefully when I try to install XP Pro on the drive, it won't freak out again.

But, it's Windows. It's made to freak out.

 

[Brett]

All done