Changing from IDE to SATA

[ShaunyR]

Today I put my new serial ATA Maxtor hard drive into my computer. This replaced my former IDE HDD. My friend and I made sure that everything was connected properly with Raid wiring power supply, mobo, everything; yet when I go ahead and put in my Maxtor disk to prepare my PC to install Windows, it runs the sequence to buffer it or prepare it for Windows and it tells me that it cannot read my hard disk, and must exit setup. When I go into BIOS (which I am not experienced with) I went to get a reading on my hard drive, and it seems as though it is trying to read an IDE hard drive. I need to know if there is a setting I need to go into in my BIOS to change it so that it will read my brand new SATA drive.

I would post specs but I'm pretty sure they don't matter. 100gb Maxtor HD, and an Abit mobo, fairly new model (dont know it exactly b/c PC isn't sitting in front of me.)

 

[stevty2889]

If your windows install isnt' seeing the drive, and it's a newer motherboard, then there is probalby a bios setting that is incorrect. I would need to know your exact motherboard model so I could look at the manual(which you should do by the way..). Make sure SATA is enabled in the bios, enhanced mode is on(if there is a setting for it). Oh, and a SATA drive is still an IDE drive, both PATA and SATA drives are IDE(integrated drive electronics). Also, I noticed you mentioned something about raid wiring..not sure what you are talking about there..but if you have SATA raid enabled in the bios, that is probably your problem..you aren't using raid with a single drive..

If windows still doesn't see the hard drive, you probably need the SATA controller drivers on a floppy disk, then press F6 when prompted by the windows install, and it will install the drivers from the floppy. That is not normaly required on newer motherboards however.

 

[Madwand1]

Your MB / BIOS shouldn't need to be told that you have a SATA drive -- it already knows about the connectors. Some of the wording might be confusing, coming from legacy IDE, but it should be fine.

Your OS, however, might need to have special drivers installed in order to be able to read the SATA drive. This depends largely on the MB chipset. E.g. Nvidia chipsets don't have problems here, but ULi do. So what's the MB model number?