A8AE-LE OEM with Radeon xPress 200 + sb400

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duby229

2[H]4U
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May 1, 2005
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So.... I need the ahci sata driver so that I can install windows xp home on this. As is, the windows installer can't see any drives. I assume that is because it doesn't have an ahci driver for ATi's sb400 southbridge. Looking at AMD's web site I can't find the driver I need. It should be here....

http://support.amd.com/en-us/downlo...ws XP - Professional/Home&RenderOnServer=true

But it isn't....

So, I turned to looking at HPs web site to find the original factory driver....

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...8&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=1809590

Still no sign of any ahci sata driver....

I've also checked other OEM websites to see if they happened to host the driver I need and I can't find it anywhere. I'm not sure what to do. Without it I don't think it's possible to install windows.

Any advice?
 
Unfortunately the bios option for it isn't there. That was the first thing I thought of as well, but no. Maybe HP has a bios update? I'll have to look.
 
duby229 said:
Unfortunately the bios option for it isn't there. That was the first thing I thought of as well, but no. Maybe HP has a bios update? I'll have to look.
Click to expand...

Some of those HP machines have multiple boot key combos for different areas of the BIOS. Double check your screen on power up and look fast, they fly by quickly.

You could use the SATA/ACHI/RAID drivers and only run one drive but keep in mind XP no longer has any updates or support. Also keep in mind if you do find the drivers they have to either be on a floppy and you hit F-6 at boot for install or you have to slipstream the drivers into a new install disk.

ORRRRRRR, you could go to Vista 32 or Win 7 32 and the ACHI drivers are already in the OS.

Just some thoughts:)
 
BillR said:
Some of those HP machines have multiple boot key combos for different areas of the BIOS. Double check your screen on power up and look fast, they fly by quickly.

You could use the SATA/ACHI/RAID drivers and only run one drive but keep in mind XP no longer has any updates or support. Also keep in mind if you do find the drivers they have to either be on a floppy and you hit F-6 at boot for install or you have to slipstream the drivers into a new install disk.

ORRRRRRR, you could go to Vista 32 or Win 7 32 and the ACHI drivers are already in the OS.

Just some thoughts:)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I looked carefully at all the boot options. None of them seem to give me the option to change sata modes. I did find an updated bios on HPs web site, but no dice there either.

What about Vista or 7 x64? Do they also include ahci drivers? I tried both of them already and they didn't detect any drives either.
 
duby229 said:
Yeah, I looked carefully at all the boot options. None of them seem to give me the option to change sata modes. I did find an updated bios on HPs web site, but no dice there either.

What about Vista or 7 x64? Do they also include ahci drivers? I tried both of them already and they didn't detect any drives either.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if something else is being missed here. Even if you had the drivers on floppy the machine would have to be able to see the drives.

Bad cable?
Bad drive?
Bad optical drive and or cable?
Bad SATA controller?

And yes, every Windows install from Vista 32/64 up auto installs the drivers. Did you ever have an OS installed on this machine or did you pick it up with no OS because it has possible issues?
 
It's a repair I'm doing. I can boot a linux livecd and mount the drive fine from there. lspci shows the controller. At least on a linux distro the hardware seems to work fine. Also I can boot up seatools and it detects the drive and is able to run diagnostics on it, which all pass.

I'm not sure whats going on. If in fact vista and windows 7 do have ahci drivers preloaded on the install disc then it should theoretically work.

Maybe the controller isn't in ahci mode? Maybe it's in raid mode? I'm just not sure, the bios doesn't hve the options to do anything about it.
 
Well, I'm lost then. Have you tried the HP forums?
 
Yeah, Thanks for your suggestions. It still isn't resolved, but in truth I feel a little better that I'm not the only one stumped by this. At least now I can go to the owner of the machine and suggest she buy a new board.

This is the problem with old unsupported hardware. Though, AMD at minimum should be hosting the drivers for ATis old hardware. I understand this hardware is from a time before the merger, but AMD still has a responsibility to those customers. And, HP should have the original factory driver hosted too, but they don't so they are just as guilty.
 
OH, MY!!

You found it. It works. That was exactly what I needed. Thank you so much. Knowing the filename to search for made all the difference. I found it in like 2 seconds once I knew what to search for.
 
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