Built new system on a P4C800-E Deluxe... SATA HD not being recognized! HELP!

[DJLanglois]

I built a new system last night. When I boot it up, it doesn't seem to recognize or find the SATA HD that I've got plugged in.

1. The processor, the RAM in dual channel, and my two disc drives (one DVDRW and one DVDROM) are all recognized fine, and seem to be running perfectly. Likewise, my USB device (mouse) is recognized fine.

2. The system *knows* that a "Third Master Device" is plugged in... which, if I'm correct, is what the SATA drive plugged into the sata1 slot is supposed to be read as.

3. After identifying that there is a Third Master Device (and recognizing the master/slave DVDRW/DVDROM drives) it attempts to read the actually SATA drive, or something...

4. It flips to a screen that says "detecting IDE drive........". Now, shouldn't it says SATA drive? Or is this normal?

5. Regardless, it attempts to detect the drive, but it fails. It says something along the lines of nothing being installed/inserted "into the FastTrak.... BIOS is not installed".

6. Then, it flips back to the original boot screen, and it reads: "Error with Third Master Device... No Hard Drive detected".

7. After failing to detect the HD, it says that I can press F1 to continue on with setup. If I do press F1 the screens reads "Wait..." and seems to stall out for a long time. Perhaps I haven't waited long enough.

So, I'm looking for some help in getting my SATA drive recognized, so that I can load up an OS, and go from there... Eventually, I've got a secondary IDE HD to install as well.

Any help?

Thanks in advance,

Dave

 

[Anaxibius]

I had a similar issue when I built my PC that is on the front page awaiting lightning strike help...ugh. Anyway...Make sure you go to the BIOS and check things out. MY Mobo had an option to run the serial ATA device as an IDE device. I could not install Win XP until I set it to use IDE 0 or 1. Once I did that I was able to install everything normally. Once the installation and updating were complete I switched it back to run as SATA. Hopefully this helps. I am not familiar with your mobo, so it might not act exactly the same, but most boards now have an option to run as SATA or IDE on Sata drives.

 

[mechBgon]

Read your manual, there's a section in Section 2 and another section in Section 4.somethin' that talk about the different modes you can use. I believe you want the Enhanced mode. See how that goes and post back if you continue to have problems.

 

[DJLanglois]

Well, my Third Master Drive SATA hd is now recognized by the system, and it shows up in BIOS, in the right place, etc.

I booted up on an XP bootdisc set, and the setup began.

I chose to partition my drive and install windows XP.

After the partition had completed, it attempted to begin isntalling windows, but it had to stop -- because it said that "SP1.cab" was not found, or was incomplete... or something to that effect.

I tried restarting the system, but when it tries to boot the HD, it reads "NTLDR is missing... Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart".

I know that this means that the boot section of my HD is messed up -- probably because it crashed while finishing the partition and before I was able to install XP (because of the SP1.cab error). Should I reformat the drive and try again? How can I avoid this from happening, and what should I do now?

I can't seem to be able to format the drive. If I boot without a floppy, I don't get anything but the NTLDR error...

So, I booted with a MS-DOS boot disk, and got into DOS... but I can't seem to format my drive.

a) I don't know what my SATA HD would be listed as (which drive it would be).

b) I guess I don't know the proper commands for formatting the drive from the DOS boot disk.

I tried "format c:" and "format d:" etc... but it doesn't work.

Oddly enough the "help" command also didn't work.

Any help on how I should reformat my drive?

 

[mechBgon]

Did you read the manual? Jump in and look at pages 2-23 and 2-24 to start with. Notice how the board can do different stuff with the SATA ports depending what mode it's set to. What is yours set to? Follow on to section 4.3.6 as they suggest, and configure that stuff.

Now skip to pages 4-32 and 4-33 and set the Boot Devices so it's going to boot from CD-ROM and then from your SATA hard drive, and try Windows Setup again, from the top.

 

[DJLanglois]

I'm a bit worried that the partition it created was bunk, though.

When I try to install windows again, it shows that the drive has the main partition (of nearly all of the space) and a second 8 meg partition... which is likely the result of the failure I had while trying to install windows. Is there no way to reformat the sata drive from my current position?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: DJLanglois
I'm a bit worried that the partition it created was bunk, though.

When I try to install windows again, it shows that the drive has the main partition (of nearly all of the space) and a second 8 meg partition... which is likely the result of the failure I had while trying to install windows. Is there no way to reformat the sata drive from my current position?

The weentsy little 8MB partition is normal. Delete all the partitions and have another run at it Windows Setup will handle the formatting once you delete the partitions and create the new one(s) that you want. Good luck!

 

[DJLanglois]

Heya everyone:

I just wanted to post a brief follow-up, now that everything is working 100%, and my system is up and running wonderfully.

Firstly -- thanks very much to everyone who gave me any help. It was all great, and I appreciated every shred of assistance.

So, here is the low-down on the final solutions:

1. After I managed to have my mobo recognize my SATA hd, and it became available in the BIOS, I had trouble actually installing windows onto the drive. I couldn't boot up a WinXP/Win2000 cd from either of my disc drives, as they just wouldn't see the disc. So, I had to try to boot from the multiple diskette boot sequence (4 disks for 2000, 6 disks for XP).

2. Each time I got through the boot sequence (in 2000 or XP), it would allow me to partition the drive, but the actual install would crash as soon as it began.

In XP, the error with the .SIF and the Service Pack 1 file read as this:

"The following value in the .sif file used by setup is corruptive or missing: Value 0 on the line in the section [SourceDisksFiles] with key "SP1.cab"

In 2000, the error with the .SIF and the Service Pack 4 file read as this:

"The following value in the .sif file used by setup is corruptive or missing: Value 0 on the line in the section [SourceDisksFiles] with key "SP4.cab"

3. It turns out that this is a fairly common problem, when attempting to install XP or 2000 from the boot series. A little tidbit can be read about it (with the solution) right here: http://www.winntmag.com/Article/ArticleID/19766/19766.html

4. Basically, you just need to manually replace the txtsetup.sif file that exists on the first diskette of either boot series (both 2000 and XP). For example, for Win2000, you simply copy over the updated txtsetup.sif file from the I386 folder on the Windows CD... for whatever reason, the .sif on the first boot diskette is much older than what is found on the CD and, as such, isn't compatible with the Service Packs. Once you make the replacement, and try again, the installation should go through without a hitch.

So, I installed windows fine... then I added in my secondary HD, copied over all of my important files from that HD, and reformatted it. And, now, my whole system is up and running flawlessly.

Problems Solved for me in this thread:
---------------------------------------------

1. SATA hd not recognized by my ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe.

2. NTLDR boot up error on hard drive.

3. .sif error during installation of Windows 2000/XP from the 4/6 diskette boot sequence.

Again, thanks to everyone for all of the help. I appreciate it a lot!

My Current System
----------------------
Pentium 4 3.0C Ghz
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe
1 Gig of RAM, in dual channel
256MB Radeon 9800xt
DVD+-RW/CDRW
120GB WD SATA HD
80GB WD ATA HD

 

[mechBgon]

Cool and thanks for documenting your findings, that'll help someone else down the road