New install issue?

[Hawkbit]

I just did a new system build tonight with a Athlon 64 3200+ and a Chaintech vnf4/ultra zentih ve. Most of my build was recommended by ribbon13, and I must say, evertying looks great so far except for one thing.

I have never worked with SATA drives before, and I installed one on this new system. Someone at work mentioned that when installing Windows xp after the build, that Windows will ask if I need to install scsi/raid drivers by hitting F6. I never saw this message.

Windows seemed to install correctly, but I got a bad feeling that the HDD is set up incorrectly. Is there a way to check to see if it is setup correctly? If it is incorrectly setup, can I fix it, and how?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: - WinxpPro service pack 2

 

[Yanagi]

IF windows sees the SATA driver properly its a good go. Maybe you had slipsstreamed drivers for the HDDs? Not impossible.

 

[Hawkbit]

How will I know if Windows is seeing the driver properly?

By the simple fact that its working?

Sorry, I'm a ex-tech... some of this knowledge lingers around, but I don't work with it on a daily basis...

 

[Hawkbit]

I booted back into Windows setup and saw the F6 feature.. I must have missed it on the first install. I loaded the SATA drivers as the instructions recommended, and nothing in the driver listing for the HDD has changed. Should I assume all is well?

 

[sfmedic]

Does windows load all the way until it gets to your desktop? Click on start, click on control panel, at this point I prefer the "Classic View" click on that. Then click on system. Click on the hardware tab and then on device manager. scroll down. If you see any yellow exclamation points then there is a problem, also you should be able to open SATA and windows will tell whether or not this device is working correctly or not.

 

[Hawkbit]

There are no yellow ex points, but SATA is not listed under device manager. The Hdd name is listed under Disk drives.

 

[sfmedic]

SATA maybe be a sub menu off of system or something like that. You will need to click on the + sign to open the sub files of each element. It should be in there somewhere.

 

[Hawkbit]

SATA is not listed under device manager at all, even under the submenus by clicking the + sign... uhoh.

 

[sfmedic]

I wouldn't say uh oh, I have a theory, IF IT WORKS DON'T FIX IT, if your computer is booting up, and it is running, and you can save data to your hard drive and can then recover, open, use, the application or file or data that you saved, I think that it is safe to say that it is working. But you got me, it seems that it is hardware and should show the device somewhere, it is just a matter of where?

 

[stevty2889]

On a lot of motherboard, the SATA drivers are only needed for RAID, on others, it's required for even a single drive. However, if the drivers were needed, then when you tried to install windows on your SATA drive, it wouldn't have seen it. If windows saw the drive, without having to install any drivers, then you are good to go, and don't need to worry about it.

 

[Hawkbit]

Assuming that everything is ok then, and there is no *noticable* difference in data exchange rate between SATA and IDE, the only thing I should worry about then is whether the 8mb buffer is working properly. I *assume* that is handled on the hdd boards and I should not have to worry about it. Am I correct in this assumption or is it wise to check? If it is wise to check, how do I do so?