Problems with Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR

[Antemblum]

This is my first build and I'm currently running a Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR with a 120gb Samsung SATA harddrive and I don't think it's detecting it. When I boot up, everything seems to be fine, goes from one screen to the next one with at the top says "SATA II150 579 Bios Version 1.00.0.23" then lower it says "Detecting...."

After about 30 seconds or so, the screen then says "The BIOS does not find proper hardware configuration. Please check your system again." And if I leave it like that, it'll go to install Windows 2000 Pro (Don't have yet) When it asks to press F6, I do that, and then later install the sata drivers but Windows still doesn't detect a harddrive.

I have put the SATA connector in the SATA4 connector because if I put it in the SATA 1 and 2 connectors, at boot up, the screen will stay at "Detecting IDE Drives..." for about 5 to 10 minutes.

I've also put this thread at the Technical support forum so I might be breaking a rule, I apologize because the guy there suggested putting this here.

 

[Staples]

I just got this board and both the SATA drives I have work fine. Neither are new and I have both plugged in near the CPU. Perhaps your drive is new and the board can not detect unactivated drives?

 

[Antemblum]

How would I activate the drives, also, do I have to put a jumper cable onto the drive? It didn't come with one on. Also, I don't think the HD led is turning on during boot up, I've tried switching several SATA power cables.

 

[Staples]

I basically put the board in, plugged the drives in and powered it on. Never even looked to see if there were jumpers. As far as activating the drive, they usually come with a disk that can do it. I buy everything OEM so they do not come with one. The way I do it is either install Linux on the drive first (RH9 setup will do it for you) or put it in a Windows system (using it as a secondary hard drive) and you can use Storage Management in Administrative options to format it. Those are the only ways I know of.

 

[krose]

Originally posted by: Antemblum
How would I activate the drives, also, do I have to put a jumper cable onto the drive? It didn't come with one on. Also, I don't think the HD led is turning on during boot up, I've tried switching several SATA power cables.

With the system off remove the power supply plug. Then press the start button a couple of times to discharge any residual current in the system. Clear the CMOS with jumper JBAT1 (page 26 of manual). Set the jumper back to default. The Promise BIOS is trying to find the drive because the Promise is enabled. Disable the Promise by setting the jumper J3 (page 24 of the manual). Attach your drive to one of the Nvidia SATA ports between the CPU and AGP slot. Now plug in the power supply, boot, and enter the BIOS. Select Load Optimized Defaults, then go into Integrated Peripherals and make sure Serial ATA Internal PHY is enabled and Promise is disabled. Save and reboot. Your SATA drive should be detected. You don't have to load any drivers for a single SATA drive AFAIK. Oh one other question, what are the specs on you power supply? It might not be up to the task with an Athlon 64. What kind and how much memory do you have installed?