Setting up a SATA harddrive with A8N32-SLI?

[AndyBogard]

Hey guys, I'm building a new computer for myself right now and I decided to go with the Asus A8N32-SLI and a Seagate 7200.9 SATA2 hard drive. This will be my 3rd computer I've built, but it will be my first time using a SATA hard drive. I need help with how to set it up and get running please. Here are the parts I have:

Asus A8N32-SLI
Athlon 3700+
Corsair TWINX-2048 PC4000
Seagate 7200.9 250gb SATA2 (OEM drive, no software included)
ATI X800XL (will be replaced with 2 of Nvidias G71 refresh card)
Plextor PX-740A
PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI
Nzxt Lexa case
Windows XP Pro

I also have a floppy drive for the installation of drivers. My question revolve around the process I need to go through.

1. Do I need Seagate's Discwizard DOS program to setup the hard drive?

2. After I get my computer together and go through the BIOS, what do I do next to setup my harddrive?

3. After getting the hard drive recognized, is there anything special to do when installing Windows?

I appreciate any help you guys can provide me, thanks in advance.

 

[FSH42NA]

Originally posted by: AndyBogard
Hey guys, I'm building a new computer for myself right now and I decided to go with the Asus A8N32-SLI and a Seagate 7200.9 SATA2 hard drive. This will be my 3rd computer I've built, but it will be my first time using a SATA hard drive. I need help with how to set it up and get running please. Here are the parts I have:

Asus A8N32-SLI
Athlon 3700+
Corsair TWINX-2048 PC4000
Seagate 7200.9 250gb SATA2 (OEM drive, no software included)
ATI X800XL (will be replaced with 2 of Nvidias G71 refresh card)
Plextor PX-740A
PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI
Nzxt Lexa case
Windows XP Pro

I also have a floppy drive for the installation of drivers. My question revolve around the process I need to go through.

1. Do I need Seagate's Discwizard DOS program to setup the hard drive?

2. After I get my computer together and go through the BIOS, what do I do next to setup my harddrive?

3. After getting the hard drive recognized, is there anything special to do when installing Windows?

I appreciate any help you guys can provide me, thanks in advance.

I would run the DOS diagnostic program to make certain that your hard drive isn't defective in any way 1st.

Since you aren't using raid, you don't need any floppy with drivers (do NOT have to hit F6).

Run memtest to check you're memory to make sure it isn't bad. Otherwise, you'll get BSOD or a corrupted OS install.

Go into the bios, make any desired adjustments but do NOT overclock yet. You might want to disable things like parallel and serial ports, firewire, one of LAN ports if you're using one only, onboard sound, and bootup logo. Then change boot sequence to boot from cdrom. Reboot with XP pro cd in the drive and proceed with installation of your OS.

Hope this helps

 

[Capt Caveman]

Your motherboard will automatically recognize a SATA drive and Windows has SATA drivers. So, it's no different than any other hard drive.