Think this is a mobo issue...

[Parr]

I just put together a machine with an Asus A8R32 and an opteron 175. I have a Western Digital 250GB Sata HDD that I hooked up to the motherboard, and when I pop in the windows disk, it doesn't detect any Hard Drive.

I put the same HDD into my old comp using a sata pci card, and the hard drive is detected and works fine.

Anybody have any issues with this motherboard? or know something that I might be doing wrong?

 

[grooge]

Yes, you should disable RAID for the IDE controller. did you look at the manual?

 

[Parr]

Thanks, there is no option to just turn RAID off, but I can select between which mode I want to be in, RAID or SATA, and SATA is selected.

After updated the Bios, it now detects the HDD, but it reads it as Third IDE Master, and windows still can't see it, even with the proper drivers loaded...

I'm totally lost.

 

[grooge]

this board should not need any drivers for SATA drive. And it is normat that SATA drives shows as IDE because SATA is only he interface between an IDE drive and an IDE controller. Nothing more, nothing less.

Check for option like "SATA mode". if you find such options, and the choice is either IDE or SATA, then select IDE. this will turn off unneded SATAII feature and have the drive to work a a simple IDE drive and use standard MS drivers. Without any performances loss.. SATAII thing is more about features (hotswap, ncq,.) than speed..

RAID is not a controller option, it's a controller mode. you either use RAID or SATA(IDE). When RAID is set, and the channel for RAID selected, then these channel are left to the RAID BIOS and marked out of the main BIOS.

 

[Parr]

the SATA mode is set to emulated PATA. I forgot what the other option was, I'm not in front of the computer right now. I think it started with an M. Those were the only 2 options under SATA mode. Since the drive shows up in the bios under third ide master, would that pretty much eliminate the mobo as the problem? for the life of me I just can't get windows to recognize this drive.

 

[NDJeff]

I had a ton of problems getting my SATA drives to be recognized in Windows also. I ended up slipstreaming all the ULI drivers into a fresh XP install disk. I also had to change my 2 drives to port 1 and port 3 to run normal (not in RAID). 1 & 2 work fine in RAID. This board shouldn't require drivers to work with SATA drives, but theory and reality are two very different things sometimes :disgust: