Can't install XP on SATA drive 1

[zinman]

I recently installed a SATA drive with a SIIG SATA controller on my A7V133 mobo and have been using the drive a few weeks for backup files. Now I want to use it as my boot drive, but Win XP Setup can't detect it. Before booting from the XP CD, I enabled SCSI in BIOS, set SCSI as second in boot sequence (after CD-ROM) and entered the SI website's latest driver when called for in Setup. The setup message at the partition screen is "there is no disk in this drive" and it labels the drive as "157066 MB disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on si3112 (MBR)." This Asus mobo has a RAID option but no SATA per se, so I'm not sure whether this would be an option since the drive runs off its own card. Appreciate suggestions!

 

[pweegar]

Try DISABLING the SCSI option you set in the bios. SATA is NOT SCSI. Then start your XP install. When you are giventhe chance, press the F6 key. At some point you will be asked to insert a floppy (You DID create the floppy with the approiate SATA drivers, didn't you???) with the drivers on it. The install program will ask you to choose the approiate driver, then read the SATA driver and continue with the install.

 

[zinman]

I'll try disabling SCSI, although XP identifies the drive as SCSI, and other users with similar problems have had to use SCSI for a successful SATA installation. Re installing the SATA driver, I said in my post that I "entered the SI website's latest driver when called for in Setup."

 

[DaveFarquhar]

Zinman, you need to install the driver early in the setup process for Windows Setup to see it (at that point it can't look on any of the drives). If you run setup, hit F6 at the point Pweegar said, then insert the floppy that came with the SATA controller when it asks, XP setup should install happily to the drive and give you no problems. Since most SATA controllers are newer than Windows XP, it doesn't know about them without the floppy, so it won't install without help. (NT and 2000 users ran into the same problem with ATA-100 and ATA-133 controllers.)

You may need to set the boot order to SCSI first in the BIOS setup in order for the computer to boot off the SATA controller before the onboard controller (since to the BIOS, "SCSI first" really means "any controller in a PCI slot first").

Do those two things, and I'll bet it'll work.

Dave Farquhar

http://dfarq.homeip.net

 

[zinman]

I guess I don't communicate clearly enough, Dave. To install the SATA driver, I followed the exact process you describe in your reply, only I said "entered the latest driver when called for in Setup." In fact, the driver itself (si 3112) was recognized by Setup, as shown by the disk label in my initial post. Anywho, the good news is that I just completed a clean XP install on the SATA drive. The missing link was as suggested by Pweegar....I switched boot sequence in BIOS from SCSI/ATA100 to ATA100/SCSI, and all proceeded as it should. It's too bad that SATA users are experiencing so much grief over little things like that. There should be a better roadmap to follow.

Thanks much, Pweegar and Dave.