winxp install doesn't see sata hard drives

DamoKen

Hi All, finally got a new AMD 64 3500 from overclockers that works and started to install winxp this morning. I've got a 74gb raptor set up on SATA 1 (using a Asus AV8 mobo) and a 160gb barracuda on SATA 2. However even though the drives were visible in the bios, the WIN XP setup doesn't see them, it says basically no hard drives present, make sure hard drives are connected etc. Is there any special setup needed for SATA drives?

Any help, suggestions appreciated.

Cheers

Optikus

Dont know if this is of any help but i heard before that older versions of Xp dont support SATA drives, are you fully updated?

EyesOnly

when the winxp disk is loading it ask you to press f8 or f2 (i think) to install sata drivers.
its in the writing at the bottom what its loading the disk anyway.

Optikus

TheRealEyesOnly wrote:

when the winxp disk is loading it ask you to press f8 or f2 (i think) to install sata drivers.
its in the writing at the bottom what its loading the disk anyway.

Think ya may be onto something there, did a reinstall last week and remember seeing that message.

DamoKen

TheRealEyesOnly wrote:

when the winxp disk is loading it ask you to press f8 or f2 (i think) to install sata drivers.
its in the writing at the bottom what its loading the disk anyway.

would they be on the mobo cd?

EyesOnly

yeah they should be , i got an a7n8x-d and they came on the mobo cd.
think i had to put them on a floppy disk

epgriffin

You have to press f6 when windows setup starts. (The message at the bottom of the screen says press f6 to install 3rd party scsi or raid drivers) Make sure the drivers are on a floppy disk. They should be on the mobo cd or you can get them from the asus website. After a minute or two windows will tell you it cannot find any drives and asks you to put in your floppy for the drivers. Leave the floppy in until setup has to reboot for the first time.
That should sort it.

EyesOnly

thats the one, havent had to reinstall xp for awhile hehe

DamoKen

TheRealEyesOnly wrote:

yeah they should be , i got an a7n8x-d and they came on the mobo cd.
think i had to put them on a floppy disk

ah was afraid you might say that, didn't bother getting a floppy drive as I never use the damn things! anyone know a way around this or do you definitely need to read from the floppy?

Giblet

What I had to do was set up a RAID Stripe.

Go into Integrated Peripherals, go into On-board Devices, and into Raid. Enable every option.

Save and reboot. On start up you should be asked to press f10 to go into raid set-up. After you go into the menu, make sure the new raid drive is added to the enabled list, save and exit.

Then go back into the bios and select Standard Features. Set the hard disk priority to boot the new Raid STRIPE first.

(use this for help http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=340514 this isn't how to set it up as a single stripe, just mirroring, but it will help)

You might not need the floppy using this method.

DamoKen

cheers Giblet, on my way out now but I'll give that a shot in the morning (or afternoon depending on tonight ).

Nice one mate

StRiKeR

whats the sata controller? if its on board and it has options between raid and non raid in your bios you have to select the one you want to use, and press F6 to load the driver for either raid or non raid for xp setup, and you must load your driver from a floppy drive, theres no other option while installing xp if you need to install 3rd party drivers, if your bios is set to use raid and you load a non raid driver or the other way around you may still be able to install xp but it might not work right after installation!

astrofool

u'll most likely need a floppy drive. There's no way around that limitation atm that I know of, and its due to XP only being able to read the a: drive during install. It's why I still persist with floppy drives, they're only a tenner like.

Even nlite can't integrate the sata drivers (yet).