this pc is going to kill me! please help

tails2

hi all, ok i got my pc set up and ill tell you i am ready to throw it out the window. i set it up without using the manuals the ye supplied as i had one of them already and the other wasnt great.

anyway to the point. i got a sata hd and dince for some fooked up reason you need to use a floppy drive to install drivers as windows discs dont have the drivers on it, i cant seem to get it working. i have searched the net and have found what are said to be solutions but cant get it working. i have gotten help from two other people that know their way around pcs but we just cant get it... can someone please shed light on this. or point me to where i can get the correct drivers.

300gb seagate sata hd baracuda 7200.8
asus p5ld2 deluxe motherboard. or can you tell me exactly where on the mobo i should put the sata cable into the mobo. there is a set of 4 slots together and then one single away on its own. if i put it in one of the 4 it doesnt show up, but if i put it in the single it does. but during hardware config process it comes up the the hd cannot be found or may have a virus, its a brand new hd. you are supposed to use the floppy during this to install drivers but as i said i cant figure which are the right ones. i got a cd with the mobo but dont know which are the ones for a sata hd.

help will be greatly appreciated, thanks


oh one last thing. i tried to just use a hd which already had windows on it to just use the pc but for some reason in bios it didnt pick it up, and when you power up it goes to the screen you would normally get if you had to choose bewteen2 OS but the hd only has one, and if you choose it, it restarts

Conar

There are a few things you should check.
Firstly if the board has a raid controller disable this. You do not need to use raid unless you have more than one disk and want to stripe or mirror your data.
Secondly you should have received a floppy disk with SATA controller drivers. Do you have this?
If so then as XP CD boots you will see "Press F6 to specify drivers" or soething similar. Hit F6 quickly here and then follow the steps to install the drivers.
The OS should not see the drive.
Let me know if you still have problems.

tails2

There are a few things you should check.
Firstly if the board has a raid controller disable this. You do not need to use raid unless you have more than one disk and want to stripe or mirror your data.

at the moment i am only using one hd but later i will attatch an IDE hd but thats later. i have the bios set up as sata and made sure there is no raid enabled

Secondly you should have received a floppy disk with SATA controller drivers. Do you have this?

unfortunately i didnt receive any floppy so have been trying to get the right drivers off the mobo cd but dont know which ones are correct. here is a link to the menu

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4275/asus8lb.gif

If so then as XP CD boots you will see "Press F6 to specify drivers" or soething similar. Hit F6 quickly here and then follow the steps to install the drivers.

this part is strange. i have made a few floppys from the mobo disc to try figure which is the right driver set, and anytime this part came up and i tried hitting F6 nothing would happen. as if the F6 key wasnt working. in fact i actualltried on two keyboards just to make sure. later in the process it allows you to specify another controller or floppy etc so have been trying to load from the floppy from there. but it still is not working.

The OS should not see the drive.

hmmm, i mentioned about the sata ports, one being on its own and then a group of 4, if i plug the cable into the loner sata_raid it shows up when the system is checking the hardware config. but if i put it in one of the 4 which are just sata it doesnt show up. should i put it in one of the 4??

again thanks for your help.

Conar

I'll try to have a look at the manual online and see if I can see any reasons for this. In work though so bare with me.

When I said the OS will NOT see the drive, I meant to say NOW see the drive.....sorry typo

Cuddlesworth

I dont suppose you can try the Sata Harddrive in another pc to see if it is working. As for the right floppy drivers, the "32bit Silicon Image Sata driver" should be the drivers for the 4 sata ports.

Conar

Sorry, missed that attached gif.
Yeah the "32bit Silicon Image Sata driver" should be the right one.

I just want to clarify, if you install the drive into one of the 4 SATA ports and enter the BIOS, is it picked up there?
Normally the first option in the bios menu contains the hard drive detection screen, are the SATA channels listed there, and are they all set to Auto for detection?
Can you hit return on the Auto selection and does it pop up with the drive info?
If so exit and save and see if it picks it up during POST.

If you are not seeing the drive in the BIOS then this is the problem not the OS driver.
Can you confirm?

MunsterCycling

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the SATA drivers have to be installed at OS install time so that the HAL is properly installed and configured or can you slimstream them into the system at a later time?

Conar

It depends, XP contains the drivers for some SATA controllers, but a large number of controllers require drivers.
If microsoft provide a compatible driver then it can pick up the drives automatically and you can simply install the correct driver after the install.
Otherwise you need to hit F6, specify driver, etc.

Conar

Another method you can try if this is driving you mad is to install the OS on to an IDE disk, this should be a straight forward install.
Once the OS is up and running install the relevant SATA drivers.
Then create an image of the data using Nortons Ghost or similar and image the SATA drive.
You should now be able to boot into windows on the SATA drive as it has the correct drivers installed.
Awkward I know, but if you just can't get around the driver issue then its always an option.

tails2

i just wanna say thanks very much to all the replys especially to conor.

i used the driver set that was suggested and put the cable into the loner sata_raid slot. i also used a different windows disc and now it seems to be getting further in the processs. i am formatting the drive after partitioning it. hopefully the process completes.


i have to say for something that is supposed to be a new technology(sata drives) it sure is harder to use.

also what exactly is the main difference between sata and ide apart from not having a slave or master? is it faster or something.

oh and it didnt show up in bios as it is not ide and it only had ide connections in bios main. strange.

ill let ye know how it goes from here anyways. thanks again

layke

Most mainboards will come with the sata drivers included on CD.

Stupid I know because you can't actually use the drivers until windows boots.

So go to a mates, bring the mainboard CD, make a sata driver disk.

Then run windows. When it asks if you need to install a raid driver press F6 and follow the instructions.

Remember, it's not a driver for the drive you want. It's a MAINBOARD driver.

Oh and in response to the last post, Sata has faster access times then IDE.

G'luck.

Conar

tails2 wrote:

i just wanna say thanks very much to all the replys especially to conor.

i used the driver set that was suggested and put the cable into the loner sata_raid slot. i also used a different windows disc and now it seems to be getting further in the processs. i am formatting the drive after partitioning it. hopefully the process completes.


i have to say for something that is supposed to be a new technology(sata drives) it sure is harder to use.

also what exactly is the main difference between sata and ide apart from not having a slave or master? is it faster or something.

oh and it didnt show up in bios as it is not ide and it only had ide connections in bios main. strange.

ill let ye know how it goes from here anyways. thanks again

It does seem harder to use, but its due to the fact it is a recent technology.
When Vista is released it should contain the neccessary drivers for most/all SATA controllers so this issue will be a thing of the past.....until the new type of storage is released.

IDE works at up to ATA/133 speed which is 133Mb/sec.
SATA/150 is 150Mb/sec and SATA2 (or SATA300 as it is also called) runs at 300Mb/s. So you can see there can be quite a difference in speed between the drives.

One last point, in a lot of the BIOS's I've used in the past the SATA channels are only listed in the "Standard CMOS features" section when the RAID functionality has been disabled and you SAVE/EXIT then return to the BIOS.
Are you certain that you disabled the RAID functionality in the PC BIOS and not through the controller bios (if it has one?

tails2

One last point, in a lot of the BIOS's I've used in the past the SATA channels are only listed in the "Standard CMOS features" section when the RAID functionality has been disabled and you SAVE/EXIT then return to the BIOS.
Are you certain that you disabled the RAID functionality in the PC BIOS and not through the controller bios (if it has one?

dont mean to sound stupid but whats the difference between the two??

also i have passed the partitioning and part of the install. after partitioning and reading in some files, it restarts and proceeds to the install phase but wont install. it come up saying that an error occurs which wont allow it to install. the error it stats is an I/0 device error.

what is this? and is there anyway around it?

Conar

Well the PC BIOS contains all the standard stuff, memory/drive config etc.
The RAID controller may also have a BIOS which you can enter by hitting F7 for example or something similar and will contain only data related to the drives and controller.

It really sounds to me like the RAID controller is still active.
Can you tell me what BIOS it is? Phoenix BIOS, Award BIOS....and also which version.
Perhaps I'll be able to find BIOS simulator or something and verify the settings with you.

Conar

http://appro.mit.jyu.fi/tools/biossimu/simu.html

Is your BIOS like the one on the link above?
If so then go into Integrated Peripherals....its not listed on the simulator but think thats where it normally is.
Do you see an option for On-chip RAID or something similar?
If so, what is it set too?

8T8

tails2 wrote:

dont mean to sound stupid but whats the difference between the two??

also i have passed the partitioning and part of the install. after partitioning and reading in some files, it restarts and proceeds to the install phase but wont install. it come up saying that an error occurs which wont allow it to install. the error it stats is an I/0 device error.

what is this? and is there anyway around it?

This may be repeating some of whats already been said but for the sake of completeness

Check your motherboard manual on page 2-4 you will see the motherboard layout look for the chip called Intel ICH7R and it will have 4 SATA ports next to it plug your SATA HD into port "SATA1".

SATA controllers are not properly supported by the Windows XP installer particularly if they are running in RAID mode which is why you need to use a driver disk however....

If not building a RAID array on your SATA controllers for instance you are only using a single hard drive then there is no need for the driver disk as SATA controllers can emulate an IDE controller which the installer of XP does recognize and so you avoid having to use any driver disk (which is the recommend method for standalone hard drives).

What you need to do is go into the bios of the motherboard and enable whats called the compatibility mode this will tell the SATA controllers to emulate an IDE controller and that's what Windows will see and allow you to format the drive and install on it.

Under the heading of "IDE configuration" in the "main" section of the bios menu you need to make sure that it's set like so
Configure SATA As [Standard IDE]
OnBoard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]

I would suggest you do the above and see how far you get this time, do format the drive again with the Windows installer so the RAID drivers are not loaded.


The IO errors you speak of could be caused by a number of things bad cable, bad RAM, incorrectly setup hardware etc. one thing is for sure you wont have a stable system with those sort of errors occurring.

Finally if you have set the SATA controller to operate in emulation mode but your hard drive does not show in the bios still then you may have bigger problems to sort out as that should not be happening at all.

tails2

Is your BIOS like the one on the link above?
If so then go into Integrated Peripherals....its not listed on the simulator but think thats where it normally is.
Do you see an option for On-chip RAID or something similar?
If so, what is it set too?

no, unfortunately my bios seems to be different. it is like the ones in the pictures in the following link. sorry the quality isnt great;

http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/images/stories/Articles/200410/A7V880/bios3_large.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/index.php%3Foption%3Dcontent%26task%3Dview%26id%3D144&h=644&w=863&sz=61&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=rCwMM62ngw2NtM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=144&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dasus%2Bbios%2Bscreen%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26hs%3Do2Y%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

as for....

This may be repeating some of whats already been said but for the sake of completeness

Check your motherboard manual on page 2-4 you will see the motherboard layout look for the chip called Intel ICH7R and it will have 4 SATA ports next to it plug your SATA HD into port "SATA1".

SATA controllers are not properly supported by the Windows XP installer particularly if they are running in RAID mode which is why you need to use a driver disk however....

If not building a RAID array on your SATA controllers for instance you are only using a single hard drive then there is no need for the driver disk as SATA controllers can emulate an IDE controller which the installer of XP does recognize and so you avoid having to use any driver disk (which is the recommend method for standalone hard drives).

What you need to do is go into the bios of the motherboard and enable whats called the compatibility mode this will tell the SATA controllers to emulate an IDE controller and that's what Windows will see and allow you to format the drive and install on it.

Under the heading of "IDE configuration" in the "main" section of the bios menu you need to make sure that it's set like so
Configure SATA As [Standard IDE]
OnBoard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]

I would suggest you do the above and see how far you get this time, do format the drive again with the Windows installer so the RAID drivers are not loaded.


The IO errors you speak of could be caused by a number of things bad cable, bad RAM, incorrectly setup hardware etc. one thing is for sure you wont have a stable system with those sort of errors occurring.

Finally if you have set the SATA controller to operate in emulation mode but your hard drive does not show in the bios still then you may have bigger problems to sort out as that should not be happening at all.

thanks for the help, but some confusion. you said compatibility mode(bolded) then emulation mode(also bolded). in the bios it says compatibility mode is for win 98,ME, 95. enhanced was for XP and 2000. ill do as you said and come back and say how it went though just to see if it works. ill also try get my hands on a better installation cd.

anymore help will be great and thanks for taking the time to reply.

Conar

The image is fine and legible.
Can you send me a picture of what is in both the Onboard Devices Config, and Chipset section?

Conar

Just followed the link to other images.

http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/images/stories/Articles/200410/A7V880/bios6_large.jpg

You have the VIA RAID SATA Bootrom set to disabled yeah?

Is the drive seen here? If so have you set it as a boot device?
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/images/stories/Articles/200410/A7V880/biosb_large.jpg

8T8

Sorry for the confusion just my wording they are the same thing that the SATA controllers emulates an IDE controller different bios-es call by them different titles.

This is what should be set in the bios;
Configure SATA As [Standard IDE]
OnBoard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]

Installation CD should be irrelevant unless it is an OEM copy of XP which are restricted to certain systems or the physical media is damaged.

If you are getting copy errors during the install and there are no visible marks on the XP install CD then that is often a sign of defective RAM, I would run the memtest+ program and see if it logs any errors if it does then some of your RAM is faulty.

Conar

Any luck yet?

tails2

Conar wrote:

Just followed the link to other images.

http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/images/stories/Articles/200410/A7V880/bios6_large.jpg

You have the VIA RAID SATA Bootrom set to disabled yeah?

Is the drive seen here? If so have you set it as a boot device?
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/images/stories/Articles/200410/A7V880/biosb_large.jpg

sorry for the confusion conar, they are similar to mine but i got those from the web. ill take real pix of mine and post them up. plus pix of inside my pc.

8t8;

i tried what you said about the configuration but still to no avail. *snip snip*

Conar

I'd edit your comments about your copy of windows if I was you.
Boards.ie do not take kindly to discussions related to non-legit software.

Get the pictures accross and I'll see if I can help. In the meantime the memory diags may not be a bad idea.

8T8

tails2 then there is definitely something wrong with your setup the Intel 945 chipsets SATA controller is usually very reliable as to why your HD isn't working I cannot understand.

On the off chance you haven't plugged in both power connectors on the hard drive the old style molex 4 pin one and the SATA power connector as that is something you should not do.

This is what I would try,
Clear the CMOS [See page 2-22 of your manual]
Update the bios of the motherboard [latest 1103]
Try another SATA cable

Remember when running in emulation mode the HD will appear as a regular hard drive like primary IDE master in the main section of the bios to see if it's detected properly.

[Do run memtest+ to check your system RAM]

tails2

here are some pix. ill upload more in another post as ive reached the limit

tails2

again reached the max so one more post

tails2

ok thats the lot. i hope they are alright. ah damn forgot to take pix of the inside. ok ill take more and add them up. i hope these ones help anyway. they show the bios and some of the process and the error i get about the I/0 device.

8T8 how can i use that to check the ram. do i have to put it on a floppy??

Cuddlesworth

Listen, I really think something has gone in your system, starting with the hard-drive, then cpu and then Sata contoller. If you could get somebody to test these componants you would save yourself a lot of trouble.

tails2

is there any chance i could meet up with someone who knows alot about this stuff and who reckons they could fix this problem? there is a six pack of beer in it if you fix it...

Conar

Looks like you've got a hardware failure alright.
8T8, you've obviously got more experience with this board, should the SATA disks be seen on the screen shown in image IMG_1075.JPG?
Perhaps is the 3rd or 4th IDE referring to SATA?
Personally I would disable the SATA controller and use an IDE disk. This will rule out the controller and drive.
You should also bring the memor down to a minimum, if you have more than 1 dimm, then bring it down to 1.
If it still fails, try it with one of the other dimms. If that still fails try using one of the other memory slots.
It may be a good idea to try another "copy" of windows if you have one, but it is not likely.

Conar

I could probably have a look, but I'm in work at the moment and need to head str8 home after.
In work tomorrow till 8.
Party in town on Thursday.
Collecting new car on Friday.
Party on Saturday.

If you can wait I'll eventually have a free moment but maybe you'll have it fixed by then.

tails2

hey does it matter which slot i put the ram. i have 2 by 1gb ddrII in slots b1 and b2. the slots go like this

A1 | B1 | A2 | B2

is there a way of fixing these hardware problems or might there be a chance id have to replace something??

Conar

The A1 and A2 would probably have been where I'd have put them but it may not matter. Don't have the manual to check but on most boards you could put them in either bank.
Try putting a single dimm in A1 and see if it helps!
Did you try an IDE drive?

8T8

tails2 wrote:

ok thats the lot. i hope they are alright. ah damn forgot to take pix of the inside. ok ill take more and add them up. i hope these ones help anyway. they show the bios and some of the process and the error i get about the I/0 device.

8T8 how can i use that to check the ram. do i have to put it on a floppy??

Yeah that doesn't look good at all from the pictures, the Memtest program can be run from a floppy but there are also boot-able images of a USB key and CD that can be used as well.

In order for the memory to run in dual channel mode the DIMM's must be placed in bank A1 & A2 or B1 & B2.

The fact that your HD doesn't show isn't a good sign so I would do what I suggested in my last post and see how things go.

It really could be your HD is fecked.. got any old one's even the IDE kind to see if they are detected by your motherboard.

BTW are their any jumpers on the HD with a description of their function ?

tails2

its kinda strange... you see the hd shows up when the pc starts. it first looks for ide drives. then looks for other drives. the hd shows up there and as i said i was able to format it AND partition it. its just when the installation comes up it makes an error. ill try one stick of ram and see what happens. i have tried to put in an ide, it shows up in bios but like i said when you try to load up as normal, the screen of which operating system to choose comes up, even though there is only 1 OS. when you choose it, the system restarts. you can never get into windows.

i honestly havent a clue how to proceed at this stage. but ill keep trying all your suggestions and ill try that memtest and see what shows up.

Conar

Well?
You have any luck with that?

Cuddlesworth

tails2 wrote:

its kinda strange... you see the hd shows up when the pc starts. it first looks for ide drives. then looks for other drives. the hd shows up there and as i said i was able to format it AND partition it. its just when the installation comes up it makes an error. ill try one stick of ram and see what happens. i have tried to put in an ide, it shows up in bios but like i said when you try to load up as normal, the screen of which operating system to choose comes up, even though there is only 1 OS. when you choose it, the system restarts. you can never get into windows.

Exact same thing happened to me, and sometimes it would just stop formatting half way through. Solution new cpu. Old one died from overvolting.

tails2

hi all, and thanks for the replies.

well my internet has not been working so i havent been able to come online properly since i last posted.

anyway to the main point. i finally got pissed off with the pc that i just said fook it. then it annoyed me again so i had another crack at it. i tried all the different variations of the RAM and unplugging everything except what was completely necessary but it didnt work. then i just said fook it again and decided to install it on my external HD by formating one of the partitions on it first.... and BAM it actually worked. then when it was installed in put all the software off all the cds i got with the pc and then hooked everything back up including that **** sata HD and BAM it actually worked. i am in the process of formatting the partitions i had made on the sata drive in previous attempts of trying to install.

once again thanks very much for all the input everyone gave and all the help that was provided to me. it was all a really great help.