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Boot from HDD Problem [SATA drive not detected]

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by nobbie_ferguson, 2005/08/18.

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  1. 2005/08/19
    nobbie_ferguson

    nobbie_ferguson Inactive Thread Starter

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    Problem solved!!! And heres how! I didnt do exactly what it says in the manual or what you said but not too far off! I went to the drivers folder and saw what seemed to be a driver (same icon) but it was called "menu" so i put in my floppy and clicked that one. It then came up with the list of all the drivers in the folder (in MSDOS) i pressed the letter that corresponded to the SATA driver, DOS brought down lists of writing, and there it was, on the floppy. Now why couldn't the manual have said that, it says about all this boot from CD rubbish and the nearest it gets is saying "copy the driver to the floppy" but a simple cut and paste will not work! Anyhow, i am now inputing all my settings to windows (name, timezone etc).
    Thanks for your help Pete C. I wouldnt have done it without you.
     
    nobbie_ferguson,
    #21
  2. 2005/08/19
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    You've just made my day :D Some relief this end I can tell you!

    Glad I was able to input enough to get you going - nothing like teamwork :)
     
    PeteC,
    #22


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  4. 2005/08/19
    sparrow

    sparrow Inactive

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    Hi fellas! Been following this thread with interest. Your and my experiences are similar; it requires lots of time and experimenting to install a lone SATA drive. My experience is with Asus and Abit boards and the CDs that come with them have multiple drivers. Most don't work, but so far there always seems to be one that works. Sometimes it's mecessary to look through the whole tree on the CD to find it

    Haven't seen a manual worth a darn. :(

    I don't think rhe brand of disk matters. It's trying to figure out what the motherboard requires to work with the OS. Would certainly be nice to have the installation programs look at the BIOS 'cause that can see the disk when windows install can't.
     
    Last edited: 2005/08/19
    sparrow,
    #23
  5. 2005/08/19
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Hi Sparrow

    Had a feeling you were lurking in the wings :D

    SATA is PITA, but why one asks? The manuals tell you everything about RAID and nothing about a single disk :(

    Thanks for your support :)
     
    PeteC,
    #24
  6. 2005/08/19
    nobbie_ferguson

    nobbie_ferguson Inactive Thread Starter

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    Yea Pete, i waded through LOADS or RAID stuff but only that tiny paragraph on p. 77 helped me work it out!
    Thanks again mate.
     
    nobbie_ferguson,
    #25
  7. 2005/08/19
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    What are Your settings in BIOS for RAID? It is enabled for SATA by default.

    I remember having disabled RAID for both IDE/SATA, SATA 1 and SATA 2 (page 41 in the manual) but Serial-ATA 1 and Serial-ATA 2 support must remain enabled.

    As I mentioned in my previous post, I had no problems ...... :rolleyes: ...... once I found out that RAID was enabled by default ...... :p ...... which was promptly disabled.

    Christer
     
    Last edited: 2005/08/19
    Christer,
    #26
  8. 2005/08/19
    nobbie_ferguson

    nobbie_ferguson Inactive Thread Starter

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    As above.

    Serial-ATA 1 & 2 should be enabled in Bios.
    SATA 1 & 2 Primary & Secondary Raid should be disabled along with SATA Raid 5.
     
    nobbie_ferguson,
    #27
  9. 2005/08/19
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Didn't remember SATA RAID 5 and didn't scroll down far enough to find it but You're correct!

    I see no logic in Your problems, the only difference between the two installations (Yours and mine) is different HDDs but sparrow ruled that out. I have a slight inclination to disagree with him ...... :rolleyes: ...... for once.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #28
  10. 2005/08/20
    sparrow

    sparrow Inactive

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    Christer

    Just a logical conclusion (haven't used every brand) because the important thing seems to be to match the OS drivers to the mobo SATA connection (=brand of RAID hardware, e.g., VIA or Promise, and model number if any).

    With my new asus amd64 board (couldn't resist building one for myself) Raid is automatically off when there's only a lone SATA drive (and would turn on if another SATA were added) but the RAID BIOS is functioning. The OS still needs the driver for the RAID chip (hardware/firmware) to recognise the SATA drive.

    Compare that need to the situation of an onboard audio chip. So the driver the OS needs is for the mobo, not the SATA disk.
     
    Last edited: 2005/08/20
    sparrow,
    #29
  11. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Hi sparrow!

    Sorry for the delay ...... :( ...... I've been working sixteen hour days all weekend but now I'm having the day off.

    What You are saying makes sense and comparing the need for audio drivers makes sense too.

    Maybe I'm overly optimistic in expecting consistent behaviour. I mean, the same chipset and the same HDD (if that really is the case) produce different results and my logic says that they should produce the same result ...... :confused: ...... especially since the other guy doesn't seem to have done anything differently, compared to my own installations.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #30
  12. 2005/08/22
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    PeteC,
    #31
  13. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    A few quotes from "Installing Windows on a SATA drive ":

    I'm not 100% sure but I think that the first system (Asus + Seagate) was installed using XP-pro RTM and SP1a installed afterwards. (There was an issue with XP not seeing the full 160 GB prior to installing SP1a, that's why I think it must have been XP-pro RTM.)

    This system has a Seagate PATA in a mobile rack for backwards compatibility with previous backup drives. There is a problem: When the computer has been run with the PATA powered off, when powering it back on, the computer tries to boot from the PATA and not the SATA. The boot order has to be set back to SATA to get it going again. As long as the PATA is powered on, no problems on restarts. Maybe there is a connection to the fact that no "SATA drivers" have been installed but to this date, I have been expecting a BIOS update. (Well ...... :rolleyes: ...... not really!)

    The second system (Gigabyte + Hitachi) was installed using XP-pro RTM with SP2 slipstreamed.

    I don't remember in which mode the drives are running but I think it is UDMA mode 5. At the time, I pinned that down to believing XP not knowing any better. No complaints from either owner but if I get to visit them, I will check things out.

    This guy has tried everything and is still s-c-r-e-w-e-d. I'm beginning to consider myself lucky.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #32
  14. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    ... and now it gets technical ...... :eek: ...... :

    As I understand it, this is what happens when no "specific drivers" are installed. It may be the reason for SATA drives operating in UDMA mode 5. I have not found any mention of any Service Pack being a prerequisite.

    For this, "specific drivers" are necessary.

    I have only skimmed the article but I found the above in Serial ATA in the Microsoft Operating System Environment

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #33
  15. 2005/08/22
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Hi Christer

    Most interesting - it's a bit of a jungle out there :D
     
    PeteC,
    #34
  16. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Yup, a jungle it is.

    The qoute "You must have an SP2 embeded XP disc ... " is nonsense ...... :rolleyes: ...... if one can trust the information in that article. An indication that it can be trusted is the date, July 18, 2003 which preceeds SP2 by at least a year.

    I can think of a long list of variables: HDD and its firmware (versions), BIOS (versions), chipset, PCI add on, Operating System and Service Packs.

    Maybe SATA is an incentive to go by "if everything else fails - read the manual " but from square one!

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #35
  17. 2005/08/22
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Couldn't agree more :)

    Reminds me of when I worked (retired early at 57 :D) - as a Metallurgical Development Engineer in the copper industry I was one of the first to have a computer outside of the Drawing Office - Win 3.1. In the years which followed people used to come to me asking 'How do you do this or that?' to which my standard response was 'Have you looked in the Help file?' to which their response was invariably - 'No, but we know you have'! Somewhat worryingly our IT Dept did the same :eek:

    I read manuals.
     
    PeteC,
    #36
  18. 2005/08/22
    sparrow

    sparrow Inactive

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    I've tried installing windows several ways on SATAs: original OEM without any SP, XP with SP1, and XP with SP2, whatever the user has to work with. Been unaware of any difference. Have always 'needed' to find a RAID driver for the F6 driver request, but haven't deliberately tried to do without in every case. Definitely unable to install XP with SP2 (retail) without finding, with difficulty, a suitable driver in a recent build (one of the AMD athlon64s).

    BTW, BIOS additions on hardware accessories are not unusual. There are 'firmware' upgrades for video cards and CD writers for example so these things contain their own BIOSes. Have had a SCSI BIOS on a SCSI PCI card in my computer for years. The 'main' BIOS finishes POST and then looks for these additional BIOSes, and you can see that going on after the beep indicating a successful POST. You may have to turn off the splash screen to see it all.

    Recently installed XP on the SATA drive in a box with two HDDs, one an old PATA. After the RAID drivers were installed with the OS, both drives formatted, XP put on the SATA, I looked at what the installation did. Found the usual root files on the PATA, c:\ (boot.ini, etc.) and the XP on d: (the SATA). In fact, rebooting afterward got the message "no operating system found ", so ran partition magic and made d: active (the install program should have known better than skip that!) and everything is now fine.
     
    Last edited: 2005/08/22
    sparrow,
    #37
  19. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    A few more quotes from "Serial ATA in the Microsoft Operating System Environment ", all questions and comments are rhetorical:

    Maybe the lack of a "public specification for a Serial ATA interface" is the root of the mess?

    ... and I thought it was easy!

    This is common today, PATA and SATA on the same motherboard and some can even RAID across the controllers.

    The boot problem on my friends P4P800 indicates that Asus didn't get it quite right.

    This was written in 2003 ...... :confused: ...... are we there today?

    That shoots a hole in the SP2 prerequisite!

    Someone who buys a SATA II for NCQ (Native Command Queing) and the OS installs without additional drivers will have the HDD running in "Emulating Parallel ATA Mode" until he or she reads the manual (or preferrably this article) and installs the native drivers.

    This is why (some) HDD manufacturers claim that there is no such thing as a "SATA driver ". It is the responsibility of the system manufacturer (motherboard?).

    Hmm, where do we make the choice? In Device Manager?

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #38
  20. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Hi sparrow!

    I've never been asked for drivers (during my two installations) but what confuses me is the RAID thing. This issue has absolutely nothing to do with RAID. RAID is only mentioned as a "side note" on two occasions in that article:

    Not any mention of RAID drivers being necessary for SATA to work (simply because they aren't). This is down to motherboard manufacturers implementation and manuals.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #39
  21. 2005/08/22
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    A thought:

    The second step during my two installations of WinXP on SATA HDDs, after the OS installation, has been to install the motherboard drivers from the CD. I wonder if they are smart enough to install any SATA drivers (if necessary).

    The Gigabyte CD analyzed the computer and automatically installed the needed drivers but I didn't notice any specific SATA drivers (nor any RAID drivers).

    I had to "pick and choose" from the Asus CD and know that I didn't pick any SATA drivers (nor any RAID drivers).

    In both cases, any needed SATA drivers may be included in the general motherboard drivers for the chipset ...... :confused: ...... but they may not be.

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #40
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