Re: XP isn't seeing my new 500gb SATA drive

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You might want to check your mobo manual to check that the sata2 port doesnt
use a different driver to the sata1 port. Some do, and hence require you to
install a second stata controler driver

"JPP" <john_micek@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1161702062.411224.31450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anna,

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me. I'll comment below:

When you say you "configured my BIOS" when you installed your SATA HDD,
exactly what do you mean? Ordinarily no manual "configuration" of the
BIOS
is necessary; recognition by the motherboard's BIOS of the HDD should be
automatic except in a very few cases.

I had to go into my BIOS and enable the SATA-2 port on my motherboard
(SATA-0 is the already installed 160gb Seagate that's working perfectly
but is filling up). Once I enabled the port and rebooted, the drive
appeared. That's my first clue that all the cabling was good to the
new HD. By the way, I'm not sure if it matters, but SATA-0 and -2 are
the primary master and slave devices; -1 and -3 are secondary master
and slave. Right now, -1 is my DVD player and it's listed as a P-ATA
device in my BIOS (-3 is not used). I bumped into my IT guy in the
hallway yesterday, gave him the elevator speech about my problem, and
he mumbled something about potential problems occurring when S-ATA and
P-ATA devices were mixed. Anyone know if that is true?

Anyway, you go on to say the HDD was detected after you rebooted.
Detected
by whom? The motherboard's BIOS? Is that what you're referring to when
you
say the HDD was detected?

Yes - the BIOS detected it.

The fact that your motherboard's BIOS detects the SATA HDD does not
necessarily mean that the XP operating system will. The likelihood is
that
the OS doesn't detect your SATA HDD because you need to install a SATA
controller driver; presumably this was furnished with your motherboard's
installation CD and is usually available on a floppy disk or can be
created
from the motherboard's installation CD. So check your motherboard's User
Manual for information re this issue to determine if this is indeed the
case. You might also want to access your motherboard's site to determine
if
any BIOS updates are available that would be relevant to this issue.

I've searched the MoBo manufacturer's website for SATA controller
drivers, but there were none to be found. I did assume, however, that
since the already-installed Seagate SATA HD was working I wouldn't need
to do anything else to get a 2nd drive working (i.e. an SATA controller
driver was already present on the motherboard). I'll look again, and
see about new BIOS' when I'm poking around.

As an aside -- In my opinion, except in a very, very few circumstances,
it
is best to always use XP's Disk Management utility to partition & format
one's HDD rather than a third-party utility even if that utility was
provided by the manufacturer of the HDD. I don't think that's at the
root of
your problem here but I thought I'd mention it. But I might also mention
that since you partitioned/formatted your SATA HDD through DOS, you've
apparently formatted that drive with a FAT32 file system. In general
it's
best to use the NTFS file system in an XP environment (which would be
the
case had you formatted it through the XP DM utility) but since you will
be
using the HDD as a secondary HDD it shouldn't have any material or
significant effect on its performance.

I agree - XP's Disk Management is the way to go, and once I get the
drive to come up in the OS I'll let XP set it up for me. By the way -
the DOS program that comes with the HD lets the user choose between
FAT, FAT32 and NTFS (I chose NTFS last night).

Take care all!

JPP



.

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