foxconn p4m800p7ma mobo

[gorbs]

i want to add a seagate 7200 rpm sata hard drive to an existing well running pc. you would think this would be a simple operation lol. when i enable the via on chip sata mode and save and exit the bios windows hangs on reboot. if i leave it at the default ide setting it works great but nowhere is the seagate listed. the wizard in new hardware does not see it or even list it as an option.

is it possible that this mobo will only allow sata in a raid configuration. if i set the sata from ide to raid in the bios i can then hit the tab button on reboot and the drive is listed but a flashing red warning says i dont have enough drives to configure a raid volume.

the manual is pretty much useless. i dont need a raid setup for this general purpose pc we all use in the family just a bigger faster hard drive. anybody have a clue as to what i might be overlooking ?

i really dont want to remove the old drives and start over with just the sata if i dont have to. i was planning on imaging these two old drives to the new one. lol best made plans right !

 

[o1die]

I would use a floppy disk to copy the foxconn sata driver and load it when prompted using f6. If you don't have a floppy and don't want to get one, you can try making an exact copy of your ide drive using seagate's software. It will recognize the sata drive even when windows won't. Just set both hardrives to "master" and if prompted, be sure to make the new sata the new boot device. If it won't load windows due to changing from an Intel to via chipset, then try using the seagate software to do a fresh install of windows. Load the raid driver, even if you're not using it. You should still be able to run the sata in non raid mode.

 

[gorbs]

okay i will try as you suggest. this is what i get trying to be frugal. when i put my gaming rig together with the same seagate drive it went smooth as silk and is still running great.

so i guess i am thinking this through wrong. the new sata drive has to be booted first and windows installed before i can copy the old drives to it? i was trying to follow "how to install an additional hard drive using windows xp disk mgmt. i guess if it was another ide drive it would be done already.

i didnt put a floppy drive on this pc lol can i use a usb drive ?