New PC and S-ATA Drive ... BIOS Doesn't See It?

GfW

Member
May 27, 2004
79
0
0
I have just built a new PC (my first time) and I am having difficulty with the S-ATA drive. Here is the configuration ...
GigaByte GA-K8NNXP motherboard
Western Digital 120GB S-ATA drive
Maxtor 40GB IDE drive (from old system and contains data files)
512MB Mushkin PC3200 Level One
Power Color Radeon 9600
LiteOn 48X CD Burner
Pioneer 8X DVD Burner
Samsung 191T+ LCD panel

No OS installed just yet.

When I power up the PC and get into BIOS, how do I know that the system sees the S-ATA drive? The Maxtor is listed as Primary Master, LiteOn is the Secondary Master and the Pioneer is listed as the Secondary Slave.
When I try to boot from the floppy I have with the S-ATA drivers on it (and I have set the first boot device to floppy) it does not boot, but the screen shows a Boot from CD message and just hangs as I don't have anything in the CD. I have also tried to boot with a Partition Magic emergency disk I have used for a while, the same thing happens.

Like so many others I am totally confused with the S-ATA problems. I have read so many posts at different sites and read so many reports and white papers on installing a S-ATA drive that I have made things even worse in my head by having so many different opinions offered.

Am I making things worse by asking here? Probably, and I will end up bringing everything in to a PC shop and say ... here ... please help! But of course I am pig headed and don't want to do that.

So I have the S-ATA problem and I have the booting from floppy problem.

Having trusted AnandTech and the recommendations offered here for so long I decided to try and post to see what you can say to help me out.

Many thanks.
 

23skidoo

Golden Member
Jul 14, 2002
1,894
0
0
Fred--

I'm not sure I understand exactly what's going on, but if you are wanting to make the SATA drive your boot drive you will need to install an operating system on the drive. If you just want to make it a storage drive and want to continue to use the 40G drive as your boot drive that's another issue entirely, so I'll address the second issue first.

If the 40G drive is your regular boot drive and you've got the SATA drive all hooked up properly, you should be able to go into Device Manager and somewhere toward the end of your listed devices you will see something like SCSI or RAID controller or SATA controller that will show up with a yellow question mark or exclamation point because the drivers have not been installed for it. To install the drivers you should be able to stick the floppy into your drive, then right click on the device listing (remember to click on the plus symbol to see the device itself and not just the category) and then select Update Driver. If you are using W2K or XP it should then search for and find the driver on the floppy with no problem. There may be several drivers on the floppy, so be sure to select the one for your operating system. You may also get a pop-up message that tells you the drivers have not passed Windows logo testing but ignore it and proceed with the installation. You'll need to reboot and you should then see the SATA bios interface during the POST procedure; during the desktop loading you should also get a "Found new hardware" message and it may want to walk you through the driver installation again.

If you want to use the SATA drive as your boot drive then you will need to do a fresh install of your operating system. First you'll need to be sure the SATA is enabled in your standard bios boot sequence, so it should be something like Floppy/CDROM and the SATA/RAID/SCSI and be sure to enable the "boot from other devices" setting as well. Then make sure you save the settings and there is no floppy in the floppy drive, insert your Windows cd in the cd drive and reboot or boot up the system. Also, and this is important: be sure to disconnect your 40G hard drive while you are doing a fresh install of the operating system. When you restart your system you should get a "press any key to boot from CDROM" message and almost immediately after that another message (either at the top or bottom of your screen, it varies with systems) stating "To install additional drivers press F6". This happens very quickly, so if you miss it just restart the system and pay close attention. Nothing will happen immediately after you press F6, but before you get to the "Starting Windows" part of the os install you will be prompted to insert your floppy disk with the SATA drivers and press Enter. Then you get to select the correct driver for your os and the option to press S to install more drivers or Enter to continue with the os install. Go ahead and leave the SATA floppy in the drive because Windows install will need to check it one more time before the first reboot of the os install. At the first reboot just remove the floppy and it should just be a normal os install onto your new SATA hard drive after that. After all is done, you can then hook up the old drive to copy over any files you want to save to the new drive.

Hope this helps you out without being too confusing. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. These instructions are for W2K or XP only so if you're running 98 or ME I can't be of much help there.
 

huesmann

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 1999
8,618
0
76
Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
boot to the windows cd, and press F6 when prompted to use the sata driver disk.:roll:
and also make sure that SATA is set as boot instead of IDE.
 

GfW

Member
May 27, 2004
79
0
0
Thanks for your replies ... they are helping.

Just to clarify, this is a fresh install and I want to use the S-ATA drive as the boot drive (C:).

The problem with the floppy was that I had the ribbon cable in the wrong way. Once that was solved, I took my diskette with the S-ATA drivers on it and loaded the floppy drive and put the Win 2000 CD in the CD drive. Booted the PC and the Windows installation started ... hit the F6 key and and loaded the drivers for the controller. Then when Windows continued to load I got to the point where I could choose where to install Windows ... and my only choice is the IDE drive ... the S-ATA drive does not appear in the list. If I disconnect the IDE drive as 23skidoo has suggested, then Windows cannot find any drive for installation.

I understand about setting the boot order to SCSI but isn't that once Windows is installed? If I change it to that before Windows is installed then how will it be able to boot from the Windows CD?

I could, of course, wipe out my data and install to the IDE drive ... but I will not do that. I want to install to the new S-ATA drive I bought for this purpose and have it as the boot drive.

Why can I not see the S-ATA drive in the list of choices for installing Windows?

Many thanks.
 

23skidoo

Golden Member
Jul 14, 2002
1,894
0
0
Fred--

It is possible there are two or three different settings for the SATA in your bios; first would be the Boot Sequence settings which should be Floppy/CDROM and then SATA/RAID/SCSI. Next there could be a further seting to sort out the order between SATA/RAID/SCSI. Then there could be a setting in the Integrated Peripherals section of the bios to enable/disable SATA/RAID etc. Finally there could be an actual jumper located on the motherboard itself to enable/disable SATA. Ultra finally, make sure that the "boot from other device" setting is enabled in the bios as well.

It is important that you completely disconnect the IDE drive while you are trying to do the install to eliminate confusion.

"I understand about setting the boot order to SCSI but isn't that once Windows is installed? If I change it to that before Windows is installed then how will it be able to boot from the Windows CD?"

As long as you've got CDROM ahead of SCSI/RAID/SATA in the boot order, your windows CD will boot just fine. Once you've got the boot order set to Floppy/cdrom/sata you can leave it like that; with no bootable disk in either of the first two drives the POST sequence will bypass them to find a bootable disk.

Have you used a WinXP or W98se boot floppy to Fdisk, partition and format the SATA drive? If you don't have one you can download the WinXP boot floppy file from bootdisk.com to your desktop and run it from there; you will need a floppy disk of course for it to install to. If you have questions about how to Fdisk and partition your drive, you can PM me or just post back to your thread.

I'll be on vacation Friday and will check in periodically.
 

huesmann

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 1999
8,618
0
76
23skidoo has a good suggestion. I also suggest having only the CD drive on your IDE port and your SATA drive (of course on the SATA port) in the computer when you try to load Windows. You can add your IDE drive later, although you need to make sure that your boot order boots the SCSI/SATA before C drive.