Problem installing new SATA hard drive

[Garadan]

Ok I am fairly new at all this so bare with me. I recently just got a new DiamondMax 10 SATA hard drive, my old hard drive is IDE. I first attempted to pull out the old and stick in the new hard drive with my win xp cd to boot from. At the start of the xp installation it tells me there is no space to install too (apparently the computer doesnt know the HD is connected). So then I plug back in the old HD ( the IDE one ) and see if I can just use the new as extra storage. But even then my computer doesnt recognize the new hard drive. My motherboard is a ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and has 2 SATA ports. After reading over a handful of different sites and help guides I checked in BIOS to see if there was anything regarding SATA that I need to enable. But I didnt see anything, although keep in mind I dont know exactly what I am looking for.

So what I am wondering is what do I need to do to get this computer to recognize the new SATA HD, is there somewhere I need to install drivers for my motherboards SATA connections to work or something in BIOS?

[dcc]

What position is the jumper in on the rear?

[chrisbliss18]

First thing you need to do is see if your BIOS is finding your drive during POST. Do you see your new drive listed during the first startup process after you boot your computer?

If your BIOS isn't finding the drive, you need to enter the BIOS setup and configure it to use the SATA drive.

If your BIOS is finding the drive, you most likely aren't loading the driver that allows Windows setup to see the drive. Your motherboard came with SATA drivers on a floppy disk. You will need to put that SATA driver disk in your floppy drive, reboot, start the Windows XP setup CD, and hit F6 when setup shows "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver". Then you just need to follow the on-screen instructions in order to install that driver so that you can install Windows to the SATA drive.

[Garadan]

First thing you need to do is see if your BIOS is finding your drive during POST. Do you see your new drive listed during the first startup process after you boot your computer?

If your BIOS isn't finding the drive, you need to enter the BIOS setup and configure it to use the SATA drive.

If your BIOS is finding the drive, you most likely aren't loading the driver that allows Windows setup to see the drive. Your motherboard came with SATA drivers on a floppy disk. You will need to put that SATA driver disk in your floppy drive, reboot, start the Windows XP setup CD, and hit F6 when setup shows "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver". Then you just need to follow the on-screen instructions in order to install that driver so that you can install Windows to the SATA drive.

I dont see the drive listed during the first startup process. When I enter BIOS doesnt seem to be detecting a new drive. Possibly I am doing something wrong.

I cant remember if the motherboard came with the floppy for the SATA drivers or not but I dont have it now, I went to www.asus.com and dl'd some drivers for my model, havent been able to test that yet. But that only helps if BIOS is detecting the new HD? Or will that possibly correct the problem even if BIOS isnt detecting?

To the first question, my IDE controller cable runs to the old HD and then a SATA cable runs to the new HD, both completely seperate of course. (not sure if that answers the jumper question, only two plug -ins on the back of the new HD, one for the SATA cable running to the motherboard and a larger one from the power supply)

[Alvein]

Go to Maxtor utilities page and download MaxBlast 4 (non-Windows!). The .ISO image is also a good option.

This program will setup your SATA drive for use with Windows.

Depending on your SP version, maybe it's a good idea to install the Big Drive Enabler once the XP setup has finished.

[Garadan]

Ok I made the MaxBlast 4 floppy, boot up with it and everything seems to be going fine, then at the screen with Maxtor logo across it a error occurs saying 'Physical memory error' then the screen just goes to a dos screen with c:\>

Not sure what to do now. Thanks btw for all the advice.

[Garadan]

Ok nm the above post, after following this site http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD0xNDIw I was able to load windows on the new SATA HD ( with the old disconnected ). Now when I connect the old IDE HD as slave ( shows in BIOS as primary slave ) the other HD doesnt show up at all, in BIOS or once it boots to windows. I disconnect the IDE HD and the computer then boots from the new SATA HD however in BIOS its not showing up still. So why isnt it showing up in BIOS? And how do I configure this so I can use both HD?

[goldeagle2005]

Some sata disks dont show up in the bios. You said that if you disconnect the IDE disk, the system boots off of the SATA disk. This shows the disk is connected fine and is being detected.

As to why both HDD's dont show up, Im not too sure abt that, but Im guessing that both hard drives have an active boot partition each. That may be causing a conflict. Try deactivating the active partition on your old HDD.

Oh, and SATA HDDs do not have any jumper settings to be configured...

[dcc]

Thank you goldeagle...that was a point that I wasn't sure about, I had problems adding a slave drive with my new Maxtor ATA, there was some controversy about being able to use cable select for both, or one having to be master and the other slave. :o

Oh, and SATA HDDs do not have any jumper settings to be configured...[/QUOTE]

[goldeagle2005]

Thank you goldeagle...that was a point that I wasn't sure about, I had problems adding a slave drive with my new Maxtor ATA, there was some controversy about being able to use cable select for both, or one having to be master and the other slave. :o

If you set both hard drives to cable select, you need an 80 conductor IDE cable. Plug the blue end to the mobo, the black end in the disk you want configured as master and the grey end to the disk you want as slave. If you're using the regular cable, you need to set one disk master and the other slave.

[Garadan]

As to why both HDD's dont show up, Im not too sure abt that, but Im guessing that both hard drives have an active boot partition each. That may be causing a conflict. Try deactivating the active partition on your old HDD.

Ya I think your right, although after a 2 day struggle/research getting the SATA HD to be recognized...I'm feeling a bit lazy so I will wait to see about messing with the old one for a rainy day :lol:

Thanks again for all the advice.

[figment_1]

Hi guys & gals first post newbie here, found the forum on good old google. I have almost exactly the same problem as Garadan. I have the same motherboard ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe an original 120 gig IDE HD and a Maxtor diamond 10 250 gig SATA HD. I originally installed the sata with little problem other than finding I needed to instal the silicon image drivers from floppy. It was then recognised by windows patitioned and formatted and has been used as a second drive since. It has always shown as present in the post right after the raid notification ( note I am not using raid ) but it has never shown up in the bios. After having recent problems with my system which to date are still occuring :- often not long after booting the system freezes and the HD light stays permanently on. I thought this might be the IDE HD starting to fail so decided to install a fresh copy of XP onto the sata HD.
I disconnected my IDE hd to be sure no cross reference happened and to keep all my data safe as well as being able to go back to it should something go wrong. With the IDE disconnected & XP sp2 in the cd drive I booted into setup only to find it tell me that (something like) drives were there, ie the 2 partitions but they was no disc present. I tried doing setup again and installing the silicon image sata drivers at F6 only for it to report the drivers were not found on the floppies (jesus they must be). I then decided to try to install XP onto the sata from within windows obviously with the IDE reconnected as a dual boot at first then when running to do away with the IDE same thing no sata available. I then tried the maxtor site read about maxblast and downloaded maxblast 4 to floppy. I booted the floppies and saw the option to make my sata drive have an active boot partition or something like and would I like to copy the boot partition to the sata as it said "copy" I said yes it then started the copy which seemed to just go on for hours & I thought I dont want a copy of the whole drive which it seemed to be doing I want a fresh install so I cancelled it. BAD MISTAKE little did I know it wasnt just copying it but transering it so on reboot I had no windows on either drive as neither was then complete and still no sata showing on setup. In the end I gave up reformatted my IDE C drive loosing 2 years worth of programmes updates drivers etc and reinstalled xp2 onto my IDE c drive. I now have that up and running and am back to using the sata as just storage. sorry this has been so long winded but I am trying to give as much info as possible.
My questions are. 1. How the hell do I get the sata recognised when the IDE is disconnected ? 2. if I ever do get there what is the idiots way to clone my IDE c drive onto the sata drive ? ( I tried drive image 7 before on another pc and it never worked !!. 3. the problem described above of the system freezing with HD light on still persists with the new xp installed is it likely this is a HD failing ?.
Please bear in mind I am at about the same level of competance as Garadan. Your help would be appreciated.

[dcc]

First off, welcome to Dandi web. Adding you thread to someone elses isn't the best way to ger help, especsially on a older thread, people tend to ignore these. The only reason that I'm reponding is because I was active in the thread and was notified by email that there had been another post to this thread. If you start you own thread you will get a much better response, and won't be hijacking anyone elses thread. :cool: