Computer Built but having problems

[Solariss]

Here's what's happening -

The motherboard is detecting everything, and everything seems to be working ok but I'm having problems with the hard drive. At first I had it plugged into the wrong slot on the mobo and it wasn't getting detected. Played around with it for a bit and found the right slot, and it's now detected as the master drive. I have a WD 80gb sata hard drive. So it's detecting the drive is there now but when I tried to install windows it said "Windows has not detected a hard drive installed" or something similar to that. I read the manual and tried changing a few things in the BIOS. It told me to change something to IDE operation mode if I only have 1 drive. Does that make sense for a SATA drive? Well, I did that now, and when I boot up it says "BIOS is not installed," but I can still get into the BIOS, and get to the windows setup, yet it still says there is no hard drive even though the system is detecting it.

Sorry it's kinda long, but really getting frustrated here, please help if you have any idea what's going on.

[Ham n Cheese]

Go to WD and get the SATA driver if it didn't come with it. Put it on a floppy and stick it in. Boot from CD as normal, hit F8 when it starts doing shit (will actually say at the bottom hit F8 to install a SCSI or SATA Drive).

[Eomer]

Pretty sure it's F6 actually, during the Windows XP setup to install drivers for a SATA drive. Also, prior to that, you will probably have to go into the BIOS for your SATA controller and setup the partition on the drive, and possibly format it, so that once Windows installs that SATA driver there will be a usable partition for it to install on.

Also, if you want to simplify things, don't mix and match IDE and SATA. Not sure if you are or not. I had two IDE drives and a SATA drive, and it took a hell of a long time before I got shit working properly, what a cunt it was. Kept trying to boot off the IDE drives and so on.

[Solariss]

just did all this, nothing worked... was told to use the cd my motherboard came with to make a disk also. Did that, still didn't work.

[renthin]

It is very easy to install SATA Drives on this board, however you will need to make a floppy disk before you take your old drive out.

On the CD that comes with the Board is a folder that has the drivers for the Via and the Promise Raid Controllers. Make sure you double click the exe file as that makes the disk with the files that are needed.

You need to decide which you are going to attach your drive to (I have attached my one to the on board Via controller) then install the drive to the appropriate SATA channel

When you boot up, go into the bios, and set it to SATA boot mode on the Via properties.

Once this has been done, put the Win XP CD into the drive and boot from it, when prompted hit F6 to install raid drivers, and then when you are prompted to install them put the floppy disk in that you made and it will search for the drivers and select the one it needs, it is plain sailing from there!

[Solariss]

Originally posted by renthin
It is very easy to install SATA Drives on this board, however you will need to make a floppy disk before you take your old drive out.

On the CD that comes with the Board is a folder that has the drivers for the Via and the Promise Raid Controllers. Make sure you double click the exe file as that makes the disk with the files that are needed.

You need to decide which you are going to attach your drive to (I have attached my one to the on board Via controller) then install the drive to the appropriate SATA channel

When you boot up, go into the bios, and set it to SATA boot mode on the Via properties.

Once this has been done, put the Win XP CD into the drive and boot from it, when prompted hit F6 to install raid drivers, and then when you are prompted to install them put the floppy disk in that you made and it will search for the drivers and select the one it needs, it is plain sailing from there!

Yes, I've done this. Doesn't work.

[Eomer]

Be more specific, then. I have no idea what isn't working, what steps it fails at, and so on. You aren't being very clear at all.

[Ham n Cheese]

Originally posted by Eomer
Pretty sure it's F6 actually

Yeah. Brain fart.

Maybe your computer is in raid mode when it doesn't need to be. Hit F4 to enter your Raid Utility I think.

[Solariss]

I've told you already the only problem I'm having. It says "Windows setup does not detect any hard disk installed." I put in the cd that came with the motherboard, and ran makedisk.exe to put the files on a floppy. Ran F6 when windows setup came up, specified what files to install (the ones for windows xp) it ran through them and everything - still doesn't detect hard drive. I also tried some drivers from the western digital site, none of which worked.

[Eomer]

And did you ensure there was an active partition set up through your SATA controller's BIOS? If you haven't done that, then there's no HD for Windows to find.

[Solariss]

how would I do that? I've searched through basically the entire bios, read everything in the manual I can think of on how to get an OS installed. The only thing I've seen in the BIOS concering the hard drive is the "Onboard Device Configuration" then I can go to "Onboard Promise Controller" and I have the option to enable or disable it. Enabling it gives me 2 more options to put it in RAID MODE or IDE MODE, and when I put it in IDE mode it says "Bios is not installed" upon start up. Raid mode just doesn't work, and disabling doesn't work either. I've tried almost everything, and even trying to install different drivers from different sites.

[Eomer]

Could you at the least post your motherboard model?

[Solariss]

Yeah, sorry.. was posted in the other thread I had. It's an Asus A8V Deluxe with an 80gb Western Digital SATA Hard Drive.

I've done several searches in google using those terms and many people have the same exact problem with that motherboard and hard drive combo, but most have gotten it to work. I've downloaded updated drivers they have suggested from different sites, drivers from the western digital site, asus site, and via site. Nothing has worked at all, and I don't think I'm doing anything wrong.

[Eomer]

Have you been into the BIOS of the SATA/RAID controller itself? Yes/no? NOT your motherboard's BIOS. They are two different things, and you can't get from one to the other.

[Solariss]

actually I have, and it says I can create an array or whatever, but it doesn't let me do anything at all. It says hit the arrow keys to select a drive but when I do nothing happens.