SATA HD Problem

Psycopat

Im havin problems with my new sata hd's, 4 to be exact, im building 4 rigs and getting the same problems with each one, it will start to load windows but when it gets to the point to where you choose the hard disk it says there is none installed :eek: they are all different components in each pc, 3 939's and a celeron with a WD raptor, 2 Seagates and a maxtor, what the feck am i doin wrong?

L31mr0d

windows does not natively have drivers for SATA drives, you need to have a floppy disk with the drivers on it. During install you will see something like "press f6 to install third party scsi drivers", it will then search the floppy and you can choose which ones to install. I'd recommend finding the latest drivers for your drives though off the net and making your own floppies.

Psycopat

ah comon, who has floppy disks nowadays? thanks for your quick, reply ill try doin that tonight when i get home

Ruu_Old

True but most hard drives come with tools on them for partitioning and such and in this case SATA drivers.

Psycopat

i hope not because thats what i hope the problem is . another problem, all the drivers i see are 3mb, whereas a floppy is 1.44, can i use a memory stick?

PogMoThoin

Should be a utility on mobo disk that makes the floppy for you. Do you not have a disk for mobo?

Michael Collins

Nope it will only detect a floppy disk. Clever no? :rolleyes: This really annoys me, there's no good way to solve this. I mean you could Slipstream the SATA drivers and create a new CD with the drivers included, but it's not an easy process. A search on Google for "slipstream SATA drivers" will give you an idea of whats involved, but if you don't have anything in principle against buying or getting a loan of a floppy drive (when it's only for installing the damn OS!) I'd suggest you do that, as it's by far the easiest way.

Sadly I do have principles against this so I haven't got around to installing mine yet...

PogMoThoin

Slipstreaming is a messy process.
Need a floppy drive. Can make Driver floppy on any pc with floppy drive

Psycopat

PogMoThoin wrote:

Do you not have a disk for mobo?

I do actually will that work before windows?

PogMoThoin

No it wont work. You need windows to read the disk.
You gonna have to use another pc to make driver floppy and then use it when asked while installing windows. There should be a utility on the mobo disk to make it. You install these drivers by pressing f6 when you see the prompt when installing windows. Prompt will be "press f6 now to install 3rd party raid drivers". You can go ahead and partion the drive if you wish. Windows will then install onto the 1st partion (c drive).

Psycopat

PogMoThoin wrote:

You gonna have to use another pc to make driver floppy and then use it when asked while installing windows. There should be a utility on the mobo disk to make it. You install these drivers before you install windows.

ill give it a shot

PogMoThoin

its a piece of piss. sounds harder than it is. u'll be up & running in no time.

edit: i notice you posted before i edited my post. pls read it now to be sure

Psycopat

PogMoThoin wrote:

its a piece of piss. sounds harder than it is. u'll be up & running in no time.

edit: i notice you posted before i edited my post. pls read it now to be sure

ill try all that thanks alot for your help

PogMoThoin

Glad 2 help

Psycopat

It doesnt work on the dfi machine it gets to, setup will now detect your hardware configuration and go no further, one of the other 939's doesnt even detect a hard drive in bios and the other 939 and celeron get to the windows setup but doesnt detect a HD with the floppy drivers im feeling sad.........

PogMoThoin

I'm stumped. i dunno what you do. Are You sure you got them powered from the psu? sounds like they not getting power at all.

astrofool

It could be one of two things. Firstly, the BIOS will probably need to be setup so that the SATA are standard ports and not in RAID mode, if thats the case then Windows should pick it up automatically. Also, make sure to use the SATA ports that are on board the south bridge, because that most often works with them.

Secondly, most motherboard drivers, when extracted has a folder for putting on the floppy, usually with a file called txtsetup.oem in them which windows needs to be able to find and load the driver. You then install the driver by pressing F6 before the install screen. You may also want to first partition the drive, and then reboot again, because sometimes if there are other drives installed, the boot drive can be labelled as E: etc. which can get messy (its due to the order the drives are logically found in, those without partitions getting assigned when partitioned).

Windows Vista will allow loading of the drivers from CD or USB key, but win2k/XP/2003 still need a floppy, and is due to them all basically using the same bootloader for installing from 2k, when floppy drives were still standard.

OT: If anyone has seen those Mitsumi combo flash drive/floppy drives (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Floppy_Drives.html), which uses a half USB cable for flash and standard floppy cable, if it was updated to use a full USB cable instead of floppy cable and supported xD cards, it would be the greatest thing ever

Also, try listing your motherboard models and people may find the driver disks for you.

Psycopat

ok figured it out at last, the floppy drive was fecked so 3 out of 4 are working *thank god* unfrtunatly the one with the most expensive equipment isnt working, it gets to the windows will now check your hardware and the blue screen comes up, i press f6 and it continues untill it gets to lad windows executive fles and the maching trys to load i but just stops after few seconds, any ideas?

PogMoThoin

did u use the driver floppy from that mobo disk or a different mobo disk? each driver floppy only works on that mobo. maybe u used driver for other mobo. check this before you try anythin else. glad you got 3 workin at least. must be wreckin your head. i've nothin else i can tell you try, some1 else might know better.

If ya post in comp/tech you might get more response than here.

Psycopat

ya im using the proper disk, its gotta be somethin wrong with the mobo because i tried different hd's, cd's, grafix cards etc etc.....

PogMoThoin

unplug everythin but just leave proc + ram. see do you get beeps. should get warning beep with no gfx card in mobo. rem to leave internal speaker connected. if you get no beeps..........mobo ****ed. other than that i dunno what else you can try.

Psycopat

Ok i was just about to send the mobo back but the last thing i tried was change the ram from the yellow slots to the orange ones, its all working now i dont understand why the ram let me get so far each time but who cares it works thanks for the help PogMoThoin and rest

PogMoThoin

Glad you got sorted.