Cannot boot from SATA drive

[jaybee]

I've got an Epox 8kda3j nf250 board and a Hitachi Deskstar 7k250 SATA drive. I've also got a couple more PATA drives. I can't get the system to boot from the SATA drive alone. The boot process stops with the message "A disk error has occurred" before getting to the OS selection point.

If I add one of the PATA drives (with boot.ini, ntloader, etc installed) I can select the SATA WinXP installation and boot from the drive. It won't work with just the SATA drive in the system though. Basically, the drive won't fill the device 0 slot.

I've set the boot order in the BIOS -- the SATA drive is first. For whatever reason, though, it just won't take the device 0 slot. I want to wipe the extra Windows installations and boot directly from the drive. Any ideas?

Thanks,
jaybee

 

[helpmeout]

When you installed Windows on the SATA drive, was it the only drive connected? If you're installing Windows to a SATA HD, no other drives should be connected until the install is complete.

 

[jaybee]

I can't remember, but probably not. I've tried reinstalling WinXP several times. It loads the cd, starts the install process, then reboots. On the reboot, though, it stops where it always does (right away basically) with the message "A disk error has occurred". So I'm not having any luck reinstalling Windows with just the SATA drive connected.

jaybee

 

[helpmeout]

You don't say, so have to ask: Did you format the SATA drive?

 

[jaybee]

On the reinstall? No, I did it from Windows originally. I wanted to be able to set the cluster size -- I don't think you can from the Windows installation.

jaybee