I read through a lot of discussions in the is newsgroup that all sound very similar to my problem; however, none are exactly the same (i'm not usig a RAID configuration, justa signle drive) and the solutions offered haven't solved my problem. I'm currently building a new machine from scratch. I'm using an Asus K8V SE motherboard and a Seagate Barracuda SATA drive. The machine is built and I'm getting hung up on the installation of Windows. I am attempting to install Win XP Pro from the original version 2002 disc from when XP was first released, though from what I've read it appears that I should be using SP1. I had hoped I could at least complete the install, then go to teh MS site an update to SP1 via Windows Update.

I boot off the CD, press [F6], press [S] after setup has loaded all the drivers, load the WinXP version of the driver off the floppy without incident, then it allows me the option of hitting [S] again or hitting [Enter] to continue with the installation (same screen I saw before but now with my drive shown at the top). I hit [Enter] and it brings me to the install a new copy, etc. screen where I choose to install a new copy of Windows. At this point it tells me that it couldn't find a hard drive in my system or that I need to run diagnostics provided by the manufacturer. It's like I never bothered hitting [F6} and loading the new driver.

I'm using the freshest BIOS and driver available from Asus. SATA Bootrom is enabled in the BIOS, and I've tried setting the Promise controller to settings to RAID and Onboard IDE. SATA cable is plugged into the proper pins on the mobo according to the Asus manual.

I'm thinking that part of my problem is that I should be installing off a Win XP Pro SP1 disc instead of this old one, but I realloy don't want to part with the money since I already have a license for the same product and will only be using it on one computer. Does anyone know if I have to go out and buy a newer copy, or am I just doing something wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Just finished doing the same thing as you with Gigabyte MOBO

The problem is that you should NOT be using RAID. RAID as such will only function with more than one SATA drive

Go into BIOS and ensure that the SATA setting is for BASE [term used by Gigabyte, not sure about 'acearse'] and NOT RAID
Make sure that another other SATA / RAID option in BIOS are disabled
In Gigabyte, one also sets the Boot sequence to select SCSI [not HDD or Floppy or CD-ROM] as the hard drive from which you wish to boot. Of course during setup you want it to select from CD ROM at first.: The SATA is now reagrded as non-IDE and thus SCSI by default

Now when you boot up, just after the initial POST is complete it should identify your Seagate drive

With Gigabyte, there are two sets of drivers for SATA, one with RAID and one without. Make sre that you get the NON RAID driver files onto your floppy disk.