Need help with new Intel mobo ASAP

[LABachlr]

I am building a 3GHz system with the Intel D865PERL, and this is the first time that I have used SATA drives. Here is how it is setup:

Primary IDE Master: Plextor 8X DVD+/-RW
Secondary IDE Master: Iomega Zip 250
SATA Port 0: Maxtor 7200RPM 8MB SATA Drive
SATA Port 1: Maxtor 7200RPM 8MB SATA Drive

When I was trying to install XP, when I created a partition on the Maxtor on SATA 0, it automatically named it Drive E. It is because of the two drives that I have on the Primary and Secondary IDE channels. So, how do I get it to name the drive C:? I checked the BIOS, but did not see a setting that would fix this issue.

UPDATE:

I just tried to update the BIOS to see if that would help. I used the floppy disk version. When it was in the process of doing it, it said that it was copying a program, sw.exe, from the a: drive to the c: drive, but the c: drive is the DVD burner!

It did its thing, and then asked to have me remove the floppy disk from the drive and hit enter, and said NOT TO DO A THING until it had finished. Well, it has been about 10 minutes, and it is still just displaying a blinking cursor (blinking underscore) on a black screen. I hope this didn't hurt the mobo. I'm guessing that it did not complete the process because there was not a c: drive to write to.

I did look at Intel's site for some answers, and it said by default, booting from SATA drives is disabled in the BIOS. You have to change it. But it didn't tell how! It did say how to enable RAID, but I don't want that feature.

Here is the page I am referring to:

http://support.intel.com/support/mo...b/CS-010691.htm


Anyone have any ideas? Would appreciate any ASAP. Thanks.

 

[Pariah]

The easiest way around that problem is to disconnect every ATA/SCSI drive in your system except the drive you are installing the OS to. When the installation is done, you can reconnect the other drives and they will be assigned letters after C.

 

[LABachlr]

I thought of that, but then how am I supposed to install the OS without the DVD burner (only cd drive that system has)?

 

[Pariah]

Remove only the HD's. The optical drives should be ok. If not, boot to a dos prompt, and copy the cd to your hd and install from the HD, with the opticals disconnected.

 

[LABachlr]

What do you mean by optical?

Plus this shouldn't be necessary. I have read posts on newegg.com where users of this board how no problems whatsoever installing a SATA drive on this board.

 

[Pariah]

Optical drives are CD/DVD drives. Didn't sound like you were having any problems either, just that you didn't like the drive letter assigned.

 

[LABachlr]

OK. Thanks.

Are you saying that you wouldn't mind your main hard drive partition to be drive E:? Every program in the world looks for drive C when installing. The bios update program, for example.

And I think you might have overlooked the fact that I may have screwed up the bios because there was not a writable c drive when it tried to update. Right now there is a flashing underscore on a black screen. I have not tried to do anything with it, as I wanted to wait and see what people recommended.

 

[Pariah]

There really isn't anything you can do about the BIOS now that the update is already started. Kill the system and see if it boots. If not, you're out of luck.

I always install my OS to SCSI drives and simply unplug the ATA drives during setup. I haven't had to disconnect the optical drives to get SCSI to C:. Make sure your BIOS has SATA as the first boot device.

 

[Rotax]

Like said above, EASIEST and well, really...the only way...is to disconnect all your other hard drives, install the OS, reconnect hard drives. I've made the same mistake, looked into MS's KB on changing drive letters and its really...too close to impossible to make it even an option. Its easy enough to do a clean install for me that it made no difference.

 

[LABachlr]

Just tried to reboot. Same blinking underscore. There is a restore bios utility, but not sure if it will work without a bootable c drive. I might try unplugging everything except the sata drive in sata 0, and see if I can restore the bios. This is insane.

And the boot sequence was floppy, sata drive, dvd burner. I did change it to floppy, dvd burner, sata so I could boot from the cd (did it just to make sure). Have never heard of the bios/OS making the cd drive the c: drive just because it comes before the hd in the boot sequence. However, that, and the zip drive, are the only drives on the IDE channels.

I just need to find out how I can get the mobo to read the sata drive first. Maybe your suggestion of the boot sequence will work. But they should tell you that in the manual.

Very frustrating situation. And I have to build another system exactly like this one. They are very sweet systems. It's just this initial roadblock that I have to get around.

 

[LABachlr]

Originally posted by: Rotax
Like said above, EASIEST and well, really...the only way...is to disconnect all your other hard drives, install the OS, reconnect hard drives. I've made the same mistake, looked into MS's KB on changing drive letters and its really...too close to impossible to make it even an option. Its easy enough to do a clean install for me that it made no difference.

And how did you install the OS without having a cd drive hooked up. Did you copy it onto the hd first like Pariah suggested? However, you'd have to format the HD first. These are new hard drives.

Btw, the hd on sata 1 is going to simply be a clone of the one on sata 0. Going to use Ghost or True Image. I should definitely unplug that puppy until everything is installed.

 

[LABachlr]

I supposed I could just have the burner hooked into the secondary IDE channel. Would that help, or do you think it looks for both ide channels before it goes to the sata channels?

 

[LABachlr]

Just wanted to let you guys know that all that needed to be done was to disconnect the zip drive while installing the OS. Kept the DVD Burner hooked up with no problems. Installed just like an IDE drive once the zip drive was disconnected. Also had to restore bios since there was no writable C drive when I initialized the bios flash. Everything is perfect now.