Adding Second SATA Drive

[blissmj]

Could someone point me toward a nice tutorial on how to install a second SATA drive onto an existing system? I have an ECS 945P-A MoBo and have been running XP Pro on my 250 gig SATA drive for a year now. It's about out of space so I bought a second drive (500 GB SATA).

Apparently I can't just connect the hard drive and have it pop up as another hard drive. There aren't any details on how to add a second drive on the ECS website. Recommendations?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[rvnguy]

Mike,

I do not own one of these boards but took a look at their specs and there is support for 4 x Serial ATA2 devices and surprizingly, 4 x Serial ATA connectors.

The normal practice is to locate the mobo connector (try looking at where the current one is connected) and this is most likely to the #1 device connector and probably marked something like #1 or sata1???
Find sata2 and connect the new drive to this connector and also power it.

Then in BIOS, you can seek out the page where you enable the sata devices and should find the current drive already enabled there. Look this over and apply what you find to the sata2 or whatever connector you actually connect the new drive to.

This should get you basic access to the drive that will then require initialization and formatting/partitioning.

Alternatively, after you have connected it and enabled it. You can use tools that are available at the drive mfg's site to perform some/all of this.

When done re-boot and your life should be great!!!

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[paparazi]

Quote:
"Apparently I can't just connect the hard drive and have it pop up as another hard drive"

Yes you can, once connected you just need to use disk management tools in windows (XP)to initialize and format.

Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[wahnula]

Hey rvnguy!!! Nice to see you back!

 

[blissmj]

Thanks for the input. The new (second) SATA hard drive is connected to the #2 SATA connection on the motherboard and is attached to the power supply.

rvnguy - I'm struggling to find a page in the BIOS let would let me "enable the sata devices". Under the Advanced IDE menu (think that's what it's call - at work and can't remember exactly) I can prioritize PATA and SATA startup, but there is no place to enable the second hard drive. In fact, only my original hard drive shows up on that screen.

I've also tried using another SATA drive and a different cable to no avail.

Is there a hidden BIOS screen?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[wahnula]

blissmj,

What happens when you remove the first drive and place the new one at SATA 1 with the same cable? Does it appear in BIOS?

Tony

 

[35Pete]

A good BIOS will automatically detect it. What OS are you running? Vista will find the drivers and install them (it nails them with the most recent ones too, I was surprised).

Have at it. This is pretty easy stuff so don't sweat it. Just don't touch the HD until you've grounded yourself first (ESD).

 

[blissmj]

One of the guys at Fry's recommended I pull out the MoBo battery to clear the CMOS (sp?). I did and the hard drive was immediately recognized. I'm set. Thanks for all your help.

Mike

 

[rhoxie]

All of the above answers are untrue. I have built over 100 computers over the last 25 years and not one caused me the pain and suffering as this mobo. Tried for weeks with Vista to get the 2nd, 3rd and 4th on-board SATA ports to work. Figuring that it was Vista and not the mobo, installed XP Pro. Still no luck. Upgraded BIOS. ZIP. Changed every BIOS setting. ZIP. Used MaxBlast5. ZIP. Used Seagate Acronis hard drive setup. ZIP. Paid for full version Acronis Workstation 9.1. Bought and formatted new hard drives. Goose eggs. Nothing found hard drives on anything except the first port. This is a very well known and implacable fault with a very high percentage of ECS 945P-A mobos. I've read hundreds of reports of 945P-A owners who had the same problem. After personally spending literally hundreds of hours of trying to find a solution and admittedly becoming obsessed with finding a published or unpublished solution, I bought 2 more identical mobos and failed again and again. NO ONE it seems that encounters the problem has ever found a solution other than only using one SATA hard drive, using an IDE hard drive, or adding a controller card in one of the three precious PCI slots. Kinda defeats the purpose of SATAII hard drives. P.S. My 3 945P-A mobos also did not recognize any 667 memory and could only find 3 GB memory when 4 identical memory cards were installed. In a word, the problem with not recognizing SATA drives plugged into the mobo is the mobo, nothing else. BTW, no offense intended to those who tried to help without personal experience with this mobo. The suggested solutions almost always resolve this and similar issues. Just not this time.