Serail ATA 3

[shlomos]

I recently purchased Western Digital's Searial ATA 37GB HD (called Raptor - I hope this has nothing to do with ENRON!). I am trying to install it in my PC which has ASUS's P4PE motherboard w/SATA interface. So far, the only way I could install it was to install it as a RAID. This would be fine if this is the sole drive to use. But if I connect both this new SATA HD and the old IDE HD, the system boots from the old HD and doesn't recognize the SATA drive.

WD's SATA drive is a bare drive: no driver or controller included. ASUS does not offer any SATA driver except for RAID driver (Promise Fast Track). I sent email to both ASUS and WD, but all I got was some links related to this issue which are not helpful.

I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

 

[paparazi]

Somehow you need to reset the boot order in the bios so that it picks up the SATA drive before the standard ATA unit, it doesn't matter that both have an OS installed just that the one you want to boot from is set as first boot device.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[shlomos]

Thanks, Martin. That is what I eventually managed to do.

 

[v1b1n]

1.OK first try disconnecting all PATA(IDE/UDMA/ATA) drives and just use your SATA
that way drive is listed as drive one which is the only drive that is bootable and can be active Install from there

you can use fdisk and format as usual

2.On Install of XP hit F6 to detect SCSI (put the Silcon drivers from mobo cd onto a floppy that will setup the controller) and you should be able to install from there

OK if that worked (which it should)

Then Plug your PATA drives back in and reboot OK at this stage you'll probably find the drive letters all change and you can no longer boot

if you are using PATA(parallel ATA) drives also then you'll probably find its sets it to drive one and your sata drive as two which is why you won't be able to boot so try setting the bios settings for IDE to none so it doesn't detect your PATA drives

you'll find that sata becomes c: but is still drive two...................

the way I got round this was formating the PATA drive as logical which made it drive two and my SATA to drive one then i was able to install XP (dont foget F6 and Silcon Drivers on a floppy)

but alas all this messing around cost me my XP install grrrr not that I had much luck ghosting I had all sorts of problems then my SATA was G: but still using the master boot record from C: which ment if I unplugged C: Gsata was useless) then when i moved the master boot it would boot properly so I gave up formatted and stsrted from scratch it took me hours to sus out the correct drive/boot order

hope this is a help to you all

 

[miles4]

I'm having the same problem with a Maxtor SATA 200gig HD and the ASUS P4PE mobo. I tried to update BIO's to latest version, still didnt help. I'm trying to eventually setup dual-boot system (boot Win2k on WD 60gig drive or Win XP on 200gig drive).

 

[shlomos]

v1b1n,

Thanks for the detailed help.

miles4,

Since you are trying to install SATA HD on ASUS P4PE, I can help you with my own experience.

1. The first step is to make a floppy disk with Promise RAID driver. (This is the step I didn't know for long time.) Insert the CD that came with ASUS motherboard, and click on "Promise FastTrak 376 Driver". This will explain how to make the floppy disk. Yes, you are using RAID, but it will be just one layer, so RAID is sort of moot which is just fine unless you want to set up RAID.

2. Connect your SATA drive. Consult the handbook that came with the mother board. Use one of the red SATA cable included in P4PE. Your Maxtor uses the traditional power cable, I believe, and you can connect the SATA cable to the socket on the HD. The other end of the cable should be inserted to PRI_SATA (see p.2-21). If you have any IDE HD, disconnect it for now. (Until you install the SATA driver, Setup does not recognize the SATA HD.)

3. Boot your PC with Win2K bootable CD and start the installation. As soon as it starts, Win2k will ask you if you have any third party driver to install. Hit F6. It will move on, but at the end of driver installation, it will ask you to insert the floppy disk. Do so and follow the instruction. This step is the key.

4. When you re-boot the PC, it will show a message saying

No layer is defined.

or something to that effect, and prompt you to define a layer. Go ahead and define it. You have only one HD, so it is easy to define Layer 1. Your PC will restart. Go to Setup and now you should see the SATA drive as one of the Boot devices. Choose it as the second one (after floppy). This will start your PC with Win2K you have just installed.

5. Shut down the PC and re-connect your IDE HD if you want to. Make sure you got the boot sequence right in Setup.

That's all.

Your SATA HD is 10,000rmp and Serial connection is supposedly 30% or so faster. So you should feel a significant improvement of disk movement.

 

[miles4]

Thanks ShlomoS, I did get it to work using this similar procedure I found on another forum.

This is for the Promise SATA controller and Win2/K/XP:
1. Copy the contents of \Drivers\Promise on the ASUS CD to a floppy. The file 'txtsetup.oem' must be in the root dir of the floppy drive. You don't need the Win98 or WinME directories. (The Promise SATA drivers I downloaded from ASUS' website appear to be the wrong driver
2. Go into the 'MBFastTrak376' BIOS setup and config as 1+0 Stripe, even if there's only one drive. (This step does not appear to be optional, as I've tried it without and Win2K Setup bluescreens without it, shortly after loading the HDD driver.)
Note: My instance of the A7V8X does not have a jumper to enable SATA.
3. Boot from the Windows 2K or XP CD and press F6 when prompted to load OEM HDD drivers. You will shortly get an option ("S" to load OEM hard disk drivers from Drive A:, and then a list of what it finds there. Read carefully and choose the appropriate driver set for your OS.
4. Let Windows partition and format the drive. The formatting will take a while.
4a. Alternatively, you can boot from the HD mfr's utility diskette (MaxBlast, in the case of Maxtor) and use it partition the drive. This may be a better option if you prefer multiple partitions (as I do). I let Win2K do it and used Partition Magic after the fact.
5. Let Windows Setup proceed as normally. The Promise controller will show as a SCSI device in Device Mangler.