help setting up SATA drive

[xFuryofFivex]

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I just got an sata drive...hooked it up, hit power.. and my motherboard says i dont have a hard drive...i put the cd-roms on secondary IDE...but im not sure on what to do
maybe someone can explain how?

i wanna make it the drive that runs windows... also my motherboard didnt come with a floppy drive.

i also dont have a floppy drive.

[Torquemada XP]

Make sure that BOTH SATA and PATA are enabled simultaneously in the BIOS.

[xFuryofFivex]

PATA is labeled what in bios.

[GJSNeptune]

You have to install SATA drivers. You can prolly find them on the mobo's manufacturer's website, and then maybe get your hands on a floppy drive and hook it up temporarily.

Your SATA drive goes into the SATA 1 port, unless you have a SATA --> IDE adapter, which I think only comes with certain ABIT boards. Your optical drives should still go into IDE 1.

[IceBawx]

What kind of motherboard do you have? I have a chaintech, and with my SATA, when I added a hard drive to this, I had to use my windows xp cd. Boot from the cd, hit F6 to install the drivers from your floppy, continue to make sure it sees your hard drive, then hit F3 to quit, boot back into windows, and tada...SATA appears.

[MaMMa]

ur gonna need to get a floppy drive or a USB floppy drive. You have to install the SATA controller driver upon windows installation. If you look at the botton it says hit F6 to install SATA/RAID drivers. Your BIOS will never recognize it on the older boards even after the drivers installed. Windows will detect it however.

You should put the specs of ur pc in ur sig

[xFuryofFivex]

amd 64 3200+ @ 2.2ghz
1024mb geil pc3200 DDR
BFG gforce 6800 GT @ 400/1100
ASUS KV8 motherboard
SATA drive(not working)
500 watt psu aspire
cd/dvd drive
cd burner

[Torquemada XP]

Guys, he is saying the mobo itself reports no hard drive, not during Windows installation, so drivers won't help. He needs to make sure SATA is enabled along with IDE in the BIOS.

[xFuryofFivex]

ive got the floppy on it now... i goto the blue screen install the drivers off the floppy i made.... and it installs one file, then when i continue it doesnt work...it detects it during one of the scans but i cant install XP because it wont see it

[MaMMa]

Guys, he is saying the mobo itself reports no hard drive, not during Windows installation, so drivers won't help. He needs to make sure SATA is enabled along with IDE in the BIOS.

the mobo/bios will not detect it. only windows will. press F6 and install the drivers during windows setup then it will, windows will detect it. even after drivers are installed bios will still not see it, only windows.

I have 2 SATA drives in my box, none ever show up in BIOS but they are clearly there in windows.

[Drunkinsquirl]

ok, first off if your sata controller is built into the chipset like in the abit is7 (my mobo) it will come up in the bios like a normal drive. If your controler is on the board but wired as a pci device like on the abit nf7-s it wont come up in the bios but after the post you get a quick screen from the sata raid controller were you can enter and you have a few options. i spent a while scratching my head trying to figure out why that drive didnt come up in the bios till i did some research. this might also sound like a stupid question but are you sure the drive works.

[GJSNeptune]

I have the Abit NF7-S. Windows didn't detect my SATA drive, so I installed a SATA driver from Abit's SATA driver floppy. I formatted and installed Windows. Then I just selected the appropriate boot device in BIOS.

My first mobo was an Abit AN7 or whatever, and it was defective. BIOS didn't even offer any boot devices relating to a SATA drive, so I RMA'd it back to newegg and got the NF7-S.

[xFuryofFivex]

it doesnt show up in windows

[IceBawx]

Make sure that you have the driver file "whatever.sys" along with the setup files, which should be on the floppy that came with the motherboard, or on the site where you got the driver from. Should be something like install.txt and txtsetup.oem, (i.e. on the floppy for my drivers I have to have fastxt2k.sys, fastxt.inf, fastxt.cat, txtsetup.oem, and install.txt all on the floppy for it to work when loading 3rd party drivers with the XP cd.

[BlindedByScience]

...knowing the motherboard and chipset you are having trouble with would help a lot. Drunkinsquirl hit the mark; depending on your hardware, you SATA drives may or may not show up in your BIOS but if they are supposed to and don't, you're stuck there until you get that working. I've got an IC-7, and they most certanly show up in the BIOS.....

Good luck - B.B.S.