Hard Drive Partitioning Issue

[kitfox]

I'm building an older system and have run into a weird problem. I'm using an Abit IP35V motherboard and a WD sata hard drive and cannot partition/format it while it's hooked up to this board. If I attach the hd to my other computer (a x58) it works just fine...so it's not the drive itself. I have never run into this problem and have no clue how to fix it...

 

[Ketchup]

I'm building an older system and have run into a weird problem. I'm using an Abit IP35V motherboard and a WD sata hard drive and cannot partition/format it while it's hooked up to this board. If I attach the hd to my other computer (a x58) it works just fine...so it's not the drive itself. I have never run into this problem and have no clue how to fix it...

I would need some more details before I can have an idea what is going on here. Are you trying to do this from the OS? If so what OS and what error are you getting? Is the drive recognized at all? If so, what drive letter does it have?

 

[Bubbaleone]

It's not clear whether you already have Windows installed. Is the drive recognized in BIOS but not in Disk Management? Have you installed the latest Intel chipset software and SATA/AHCI storage drivers?

 

[kitfox]

No OS installed yet, the drive is blank. The BIOS recognizes it properly but when I go to prep the drive, it fails. fdisk, partedmagic, the xp installer and even dban fails with the board.

I tried another drive on it (also a wd) and get the same results.

 

[Ketchup]

If you installing XP, you probably need the hard drive controller drivers an a floppy and tell the XP installer to install them during setup.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Earlier I tried to locate a user manual for the IP35V, and even found the website that Abit (supposedly) still maintains. Unfortunately, every zip file available on their download page is corrupt, averaging 500-600 bytes in size, and not recognized as an archive by WinRAR, WinZip, or 7-Zip. Looks like their website isn't anything but a placeholder today. Considering how long they've been out of business now that really isn't surprising.

Being a socket 775 with a P35 northbridge, ICH9 southbridge, and 4 SATA 3Gb/s ports all I can suggest is to try every port...even the IDE port. But, given that neither PartedMagic or Dban can access any disk suggests that old girl has already headed south.

 

[Ketchup]

Before I say anything else, I will point on that this may or may not work.

Now, what you need right now is the ICH7 SATA dirvers, not necessarily ones for that board.

So if you look up a board from a manufacturer that is still around, you should be able to get around this. I looked on Intel's site, but they have nothing listed for this chipset any longer (save for data sheets).

I did a little searching, and found a gigabyte board with the ICH7 and working downloads.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4219#dl

Select XP and download the Intel INF Installation.

Once you download the file, extract it and put the ini and dll files in the root directory on a floppy and see if you can install Windows with those.

 

[Cerb]

Try it with the SATAs set to IDE mode. If that doesn't work, the board probably has issues. In IDE mode (sometimes called legacy, in BIOSes), XP will not know it's not talking to a standard Intel PATA controller.

 

[Ketchup]

Try it with the SATAs set to IDE mode. If that doesn't work, the board probably has issues. In IDE mode (sometimes called legacy, in BIOSes), XP will not know it's not talking to a standard Intel PATA controller.

Good idea Cerb.

 

[kitfox]

@Bubbaleone
I tried every port, same result. What's weird is the DVD Drive works fine in any port.

@ketchup79
SATA drivers are already integrated into the CD. It just gets to the format portion of the installer and times out.

@Cerb
Unfortunately, the bios doesn't have that option (its pretty basic). The only options I have is SATA controller enabled/disabled.



I'm starting to think this board is a dud.

 

[John Connor]

Have you tried reseting BIOS? I had a stubborn Dell 4600 and had to do a BIOS reset and mess around with the SATA options and IDE options before my SATA drive would work.

 

[C1]

If you can run the DvD using the SATA ports then the SATA ports are working and the HDDs should work too.

There may be an issue with compatibility between the SATA controllers and the HDDs (as the board technology is dated and appears to not even natively support AHCI) while I suspect that the HDD are modern (eg, host AFT, NCQ, AHCI).

I would try what ketchup79 suggested and use the the F6 option to load the ICH7 (think it was called "storage controller manager" from INTEL). This is done right up front in the OS install process and might just do the trick (ie, allow proceed to formatting).

(Sometimes this can be a bit tricky in deciding the correct files to select from in the INTEL Storage Controller Manager suite.)

On NE, a good number of people have had issues with this model board (with sound, IDE thru put performance and USB port stability, but no failure with SATA ports was reported). Also, lots of people like this board and have rated their experience with it highly.

 

[Ketchup]

@Bubbaleone
I tried every port, same result. What's weird is the DVD Drive works fine in any port.

@ketchup79
SATA drivers are already integrated into the CD. It just gets to the format portion of the installer and times out.

@Cerb
Unfortunately, the bios doesn't have that option (its pretty basic). The only options I have is SATA controller enabled/disabled.



I'm starting to think this board is a dud.

So have you done this install (the XP you mentioned) with this hardware (mainly motherboard) before?

 

[piasabird]

You have to use the OS install program and look for the drive. I think that is how XP works. The BIOS itself and the Processor may indicate some limitations in size and usability of a specific drive. So is the OS 32 bit or 64 bit? You have to have access to an OS on some level to partition the Drive. Of course the drive itself could be bad and you would have to download from the drive manufacturer, some kind of Hard drive Utilities to test it.

If you have to install drivers for SATA that can be a pain. Never tried that. Some older motherboards wanted you to use a floppy to do that.

 

[Ketchup]

You have to use the OS install program and look for the drive. I think that is how XP works. The BIOS itself and the Processor may indicate some limitations in size and usability of a specific drive. So is the OS 32 bit or 64 bit? You have to have access to an OS on some level to partition the Drive. Of course the drive itself could be bad and you would have to download from the drive manufacturer, some kind of Hard drive Utilities to test it.

If you have to install drivers for SATA that can be a pain. Never tried that. Some older motherboards wanted you to use a floppy to do that.

The Windows setup program will format the drive, but only if it can detect the hard drive controller it is a attached to. If it can't, the floppy method is necessary for XP. Vista, 7, and 8 have the ability to read this information off a flash drive.

 

[kitfox]

@John Connor
I'll give that a shot and maybe try an older bios if it doesn't work.

@C1
It's possible...but I did have the same hard drive running on an older nforce3 board.

@ketchup79
No. I just bought the board off of ebay. It's actually for a Win98 project (that's why I got one with an older southbridge). I only tried to install XP because fdisk/partedmagic weren't working properly.

@piasabird
It's just a 320GB drive. I don't think its an issue with the sata drivers since it's doing the same thing with fdisk/partedmagic.


I'm starting to understand why Abit went out of business

 

[kitfox]

Ok just cleared the bios...that seems to have done the trick. I replaced the battery when I built it and thought that had reset it, guess not :awe:

Thanks all for the help!

 

[John Connor]

Your welcome!