How to install a simple WD Raptor 74 GB SATA Drive with Windows XP

[Mister Walrus]

Hi all,

I have a WD 10,000 RPM 74 GB SATA Hard drive, a Windows XP Home CD, and an Asus P4S800D motherboard. I simply want to install windows on the disk. I put the disk in the CD rom drive, boot the computer, and eventually after trying to install windows I get this message: " Setup did not find any hard disks installed in your computer." Can someone detail the steps I need to follow to install the drive? I know that everything is working properly...some others have said to "find the drivers," etc, I've looked and I don't really know where to get them. Please, if you can give some more detailed help that would be awesome.

Thanks!

 

[bigboxes]

SATA drives require a sata driver to install before windows can install. You XP disc needs SP2 on the install disc or you have to have the sata driver on a disk. WinXP disc will ask you to press F6 if you want to install 3rd party drivers. You insert your disk, press F6 and Windows installs your sata driver and then continues on with installation. Without the sata driver Windows cannot "see" the sata hdd.

 

[savvy]

Download the SATA drivers from the website so you can use them after pressing F6 to install third part drivers.

 

[boomerang]

The best I can determine from looking through the manual for your board, there are no drivers required.

There is a BIOS update at the ASUS site that has something to do with SATA drives not being detected at boot-up. There appears to be several releases since. See what BIOS version you are at and flash if necessary.

Afterwards, make sure that SATA is enabled in your BIOS. Also make sure that your drive is detected by the BIOS and that the boot order in BIOS has your SATA drive listed.

Some ASUS boards need to have a single drive, RAID array created to allow for XP installation and booting from same. This seems like the wrong thing to do, but is nonetheless required. I am not certain if that is the case with your board. The ASUS site does not address this in their FAQ section for your board, so this may not be the case. My P4PE board does require this to be done. But your board has an SiS chipset so I cannot say with any certainty that you need to do this.

If you do need to create the one disk array, there is a RAID driver available at the ASUS site. It will be on the motherboard CD also. It will need to be on a floppy and available at the F6 prompt.

I wish I could tell you exactly what you need to do. The motherboards forum may be a better source of information. Put your board model in the title.