SATA installation problem, PLEASE help!

[Morfik]

I just replaced a 20Gb Maxtor IDE HDD with an 80 Gb Seagate SATA Hard drive.

I ran this utility called DiskWizard (Startup Edition) to set up the drive for XP installation. It coppied files (for XP) and partitioned and formatted it and then displayed a message saying that I should now be able to restart with XP cd and boot and use the new drive.

My motherboard is the MSI K8T-Neo and comes with Floppies to install drivers for SATA. The instructions said to Press F6 in the beginning of Windows installation to install them which is what I did. There were a few options for drivers to install from the disk and I selected the appropriate one (Promise 378 for Win XP or something like that, no raid). So then I press Enter to continue the XP set up. After copying a few more files XP installation says that I do not have a disk drive available and asks me to restart.

I called Seagate and they told me that the drive is fine (since I was able to run the utility and copy files, format etc) and that the problem lies in my drivers, I explained exactly what I had done to the support person and he said I did everything as I was supposed to and that the only problem could be the drivers for my Onboard SATA.

My drivers came with my MOBO, I however went to the MSI website to see if I can find the newest drivers, but there was nothing for Serial ATA controller etc.

I have tried going through the whole process at least 3 times and every time once it comes to installing windows (after all the drivers), installation says that I do not have a hard disk available.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated. I need to get this PC working today. Thanx.

 

[EeyoreX]

I have an MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR motherboard, with some flavor or Promise controller. I had a similar issue. I found I had to enter the SATA BIOS (Ctrl-F on my board) and actually create a RAID array. It is completely and totally silly, as it was a single hard drive, but the utility let me, and the drive worked fine. I didn't have a problem moving it to another system either. See if that helps maybe... When I did it, no data was lost, but I won't say the same thing would happen in your case. I had a back up (which disappointed me I didn't really need to copy ~100GB of files ) and it always pays to have a backup anyhow. Good luck!

\Dan

 

[Kartajan]

do you still have the 20G? I would use the 20 for OS, and SATA for storage- if that is an option.. Maybe XP will get native SATA drivers in SP2 if you are lucky. (I make a point of not using my SATA due to a lck of basic "running" drivers with the OS.)

 

[Morfik]

the only reason I switches to SATA was so that I won't have to use my 5-year-old 5200 RPM Maxtor, so I wouldn't want to have the OS on it. I'll go and try to set up a RAID like EeyoreX did.

I doubt that it will help though, i'll post back in an hour to let you know.

Thanx

 

[Morfik]

the only reason I switches to SATA was so that I won't have to use my 5-year-old 5200 RPM Maxtor, so I wouldn't want to have the OS on it. I'll go and try to set up a RAID like EeyoreX did.

I doubt that it will help though, i'll post back in an hour to let you know.

Thanx

 

[Shagga]

I have a DM+9 SATA HD connected via the onboard Promise Controller on my P4C800-ED and in the BIOS I had to firstly enable the Promise Controller and configure it to either RAID or IDE. Do you not have something similar?

 

[boomerang]

 

[Morfik]

wow, finally I got it to work after a couple of hours of messing around with it. Here's what I did for future reference:

1) Tried Win XP install doing what I was "instructed" to do by the manual(s)... didn't work.

2) Tried installing using every single driver (MOBO disks) that had anything to do with SATA (for WinXP) sepratey... didn't work.

3) Installed everything at once (including RAID etc that I didn't use) and WinXP setup finally recognized the HDD.

Strange, isn't it?

Anyways,everything seems to be working now and BTW, thanx for your replies.

 

[boomerang]

Just curious, which of the four SATA connectors did you connect the drive to?