Re: installing windows xp to sata hard drive

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Pete Baker (petebkrAThotmailDOTcom)
Date: 05/24/04 

Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 15:56:22 +0100

"zahir muhammad" asked politely
> hi to eveyone,
> i just bought a new computer system with new components
> which includes among other things an asus a7v600-x
> motherboard and a 80gb maxtor sata hard drive. i've been
> trying to install windows xp professional to my system
> but failed. during the installation process, windows
> setup could not continue because it did not detect any
> hard drive. after browsing a few forum i've learned that
> i must load a third party scsi/sata driver before i could
> proceed the installation process. so after doing some
> searching i've downloaded silicon image's scsi/sata
> driver. but after loading this file during the setup
> process (after pressing f6), windows setup still can't
> detect my hard drive. can someone help me to overcome
> this problem. asus didn't supply any scsi/sata driver
> disk with the motherboard package and this is the first
> time i'm trying to install windows xp to a sata hard
> drive. i would welcome any help. thank you.

Hello Zahir

Why did you attempt to use the Silicon Image drivers? That would only be
appropriate if your mainboard had a Silicon Image controller - which it
doesn't.

As it is your mainboard actually uses a VIA VT8237 controller fully
integrated in the South bridge which, if I'm correct, utilizes standard IDE
drivers included on the XP installation disk. This means that you should
NOT need to introduce any third-party drivers during installation (if you
needed to use the F6 method they would need to be VIA drivers anyway to suit
the VIA controller).

So why can't the installation see the SATA disk?

1. Check the cables are connected correctly.

2. Check you have the appropriate BIOS settings - your mainboard manual
would normally help but Asus are never terribly well written - from what I
can tell you may need to set "Onboard ATA Boot ROM" to Enabled in the I/O
device menu see page 2-21 and possibly you may also need to set the "Onboard
ATA device first" to Yes in PCI Configuration menu - see page 2-22.

3. If this doesn't clear it up check the latest version of the BIOS for your
mainboard from the Asus website - version 1003 includes an update to the
SATA boot ROM.

Hope that helps and post an update when you can
Pete

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