A8N-SLI - Windows Installation on SATA

[CYcolone]

Sorry if this has already been posted, I tried to find it but couldn't find the problem I'm having. Any ways, I recieved my A8N-SLI Deluxe last night and spent the night installing it and it's up and running wonderfully. I have two hard drives, a basic 160GB IDE drive from WD, and a WD Raptor 74GB SATA drive. Prior to the new board, I used the Raptor as my C: for games and system files. So, I boot up the new board for the first time and of course I get a blue screen when I attempt to boot the windows installation that was there. So, I boot from the windows cd and when it asks me what partition I want to install windows on, it always puts the Raptor as D: (In BIOS, the Raptor is set as the first HDD). There's no way in Windows setup (that I can tell) to change the drive lettering. So, I go through with the install and the Raptor off which windows is running, is set as D:. I then tried to change the drive lettering via My Computer - Manage to no avail. So then I update to the latest BIOS and try it again, and the same thing happens. So, I'm posting to ask if anyone knows how to get windows setup to reconize the raptor as C:, or change the drive lettering in Windows.

 

[CYcolone]

Also, after installation, Windows will treat the Raptor HDD as a removable drive.

 

[imported_neB]

Sorry if this has already been posted, I tried to find it but couldn't find the problem I'm having. Any ways, I recieved my A8N-SLI Deluxe last night and spent the night installing it and it's up and running wonderfully. I have two hard drives, a basic 160GB IDE drive from WD, and a WD Raptor 74GB SATA drive. Prior to the new board, I used the Raptor as my C: for games and system files. So, I boot up the new board for the first time and of course I get a blue screen when I attempt to boot the windows installation that was there. So, I boot from the windows cd and when it asks me what partition I want to install windows on, it always puts the Raptor as D: (In BIOS, the Raptor is set as the first HDD). There's no way in Windows setup (that I can tell) to change the drive lettering. So, I go through with the install and the Raptor off which windows is running, is set as D:. I then tried to change the drive lettering via My Computer - Manage to no avail. So then I update to the latest BIOS and try it again, and the same thing happens. So, I'm posting to ask if anyone knows how to get windows setup to reconize the raptor as C:, or change the drive lettering in Windows.

I've had a very similar problem as yours. I have a similar setup: an A8N-SLI with a SATA 74GB Raptor and an IDE 160GB Seagate 7200.7. The raptor is connected to the SATA1 connector and the Seagate on the Primary IDE channel. Everytime I try to set up Windows XP, it'll recognize my Seagate as the C: drive and the Raptor as the D: drive. In the BIOS, I configured the harddrive boot priority to first the Raptor on SATA1, then the Seagate 160GB on the Primary IDE channel.

Unfortunately, I was unable to install WindowsXP on my D: drive (the raptor). During the installation process, WindowsXP seems to preload the installation files onto the harddrive and reboot itself. Upon boot up, I would receive an error saying "Error loading OS" or something similar. My feeling is that my computer is still trying to boot with the C: drive (recognized as the Seagate) while the OS is being installed on the D: drive (Raptor).

So, my "ghetto" fix was to disconnect the IDE harddrive and have only the SATA drive connected. I would then install Windows which now recognizes my Raptor as the C: drive. The WindowsXP installation would go on without a hitch. I would then power down the machine and re-connect my Seagate. Finally, I would boot the machine up and enter Windows. The Raptor is now C: and the Seagate is now D:

What's really weird is that sometimes I'll try to boot up and get the "Error loading OS" message. Anybody else have similar issues with this board and having one SATA harddrive as the boot drive, and an IDE harddrive as your secondary storage drive? I'm thinking about going all SATA harddrives just to see if this alleviates my problems.

Also, after installation, Windows will treat the Raptor HDD as a removable drive.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is normal since SATA drives are designed to be "hot-swappable."

 

[CYcolone]

Yea, I did the same 'ghetto' fix as well. Don't know why you get the error loading OS message neB. The only thing I did differently besides unplugging my IDE drive, was I used a slipstreamed SP2 XP CD. I followed this guide on configuring the BIOS and Installing XP...

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/38623/

After I did, it's worked as it's supposed to. Prior to having Windows on C:, I would get constant lock-ups and random restarts. But now, all seems well, except for the fact the windows seems to think that my Raptor is a removable drive...

http://members.cox.net/cycolonejmh/raptor-remove.jpg

Anyone have an idea of how to get rid of that? And yes, I have the latest drivers from nVidia and Asus.

 

[Tale Gunner]

I had the same problem with my system. I have a seagate 160 Sata drive NCQ on my Sata interface and another on my IDE. I too did the ghetto and it worked for me then I did something else to my system that required me to make changes and the problem came back. I talked to a friend and he told me to use Computer Management program that came with the windows XP. In there you would find disk management and it allowed me to select the boot disk and it cleared up my problem.

 

[theuerkorn]

I tried all the guides from above and cannot make WinXP (SP2) to boot from my SATA Raptor without having still the old ATA plugged in and active. I tried everything from cloning to fresh install without any ATA drive plugged in. I always end up with a "OS Load Error" when I try to boot from SATA. I managed to change drive letters to C: of my Raptor and even went in to repair my installation with all known fixes like "Fixbootcfg", "Systemroot" etc.. Nothing! I am still booting just fine from the ATA but not the SATA. I plugged the Raptor into port SATA_1 (onboard controller).

However I initially hocked it up to the Sil controller (by accident) and formatted it. After that I plugged it into the SATA_1 an formatted again.

I installed all the latest drivers and use BIOS 1003.

- Thomas