Booting SATA hard disk

[woodyr6]

I have just bought the components for a new machine. They include an ABIT motherboard (VT7) and an SATA hard disk. The machine posts fine. I cannot get Windows to recognise the HDD - it just says no disk installed. The motherboard comes with a floppy for SATA drives which i have put in the drive and pressed F6 at the appropriate time when starting the installation. It appears to take the data from the disk and then still fails to find the hdd at the next stage. What am i missing doing please?!

 

[MaxLinux2004]

Do you have the right SATA drivers in the floppy? I had the same problem before and I have to download the right driver from the motherboard site and do the installation again and it worked. I have the Asus A7N8X-D.

Or, if your motherboard has a jumper to enable your SATA drive, then check that it is enabled then try again.

 

[woodyr6]

I will try the site for another driver - although the disk that came with the mobo seems to be right. It doesn't have any jumpers that enable or disable sata.

 

[ceh4702]

I thought there was a diver on the Winxp Disk.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[wolluf]

I've also installed one on an Asus A7N8X-D - and there's a separate bios setting to enable the SATA drive (ie, not the normal machine bios) that comes up before the normal bios POST. Is your board similar - and if so have you enabled the SATA interface? (Mine now appears on a POST screen before normal POST screen).

ceh4702 - I don't think there are any SATA drivers on XP install CD.

 

[Crowley16]

apparently, u need SP1 for SATA support

 

[MaxLinux2004]

No I don't think so. I have installed my Windows XP Pro to my 80GB MAXTOR SATA drive without any problem. I just move the motherboard jumper to SATA Enable, bootup installation cd, press F6 to install the Silicon Image driver and let it finish. SP1 comes after this installation.

 

[Crowley16]

it says on my mobo manual, for sata drives under windows xp, recommend sp1...
maybe it's for raid?

 

[woodyr6]

Thanks all sorted!

 

[paparazi]

Can you tell us what you did that "sorted" your problem, feedback helps others to know if their suggestions were on the rite track or not.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.