A7N8X-E Deluxe SATA Driver

[Mercury]

I was trying to install XP on a new SATA drive, XP didn't recognize it, I
figured I needed a SATA driver on a floppy. I even knew the exact name
(Silicon Image 3112A)

Simple enough, right?

Well, as far as I can tell, it didn't come with the motherboard, and it's
nowhere to be found on Asus's website. I eventually found what I needed....
on *ABIT's* website. Relevant link here:

http://file.abit.com.tw/pub/download/drivers/sata/silicon/3112a/1.0.0.28/10028.exe

Ran the file, extracted to floppy, pressed F6 during windows setup, and
everything went smoothly after that.

But I can't believe that Asus wouldn't provide a driver that, as far as I
can tell, is absolutely necessary in order to install the most popular
operating system in what is no doubt a fairly popular drive configuration
(single SATA hard drive).

So, am I just retarded or what? Or did Asus really drop the ball on this
one?

 

[Egil Solberg]

Mercury wrote:

http://file.abit.com.tw/pub/download/drivers/sata/silicon/3112a/1.0.0.28/10028.exe

that one is very old

Ran the file, extracted to floppy, pressed F6 during windows setup,
and everything went smoothly after that.

But I can't believe that Asus wouldn't provide a driver that, as far
as I can tell, is absolutely necessary in order to install the most
popular operating system in what is no doubt a fairly popular drive
configuration (single SATA hard drive).

So, am I just retarded or what? Or did Asus really drop the ball on
this one?

Go to www.siliconimage.com support , then resource centre, launch CRC, and
under "downloads" you will find latest driver.

 

[Judder]

I was trying to install XP on a new SATA drive, XP didn't recognize it, I
figured I needed a SATA driver on a floppy. I even knew the exact name
(Silicon Image 3112A)

Simple enough, right?

Well, as far as I can tell, it didn't come with the motherboard, and it's
nowhere to be found on Asus's website. I eventually found what I
needed....
on *ABIT's* website. Relevant link here:

http://file.abit.com.tw/pub/download/drivers/sata/silicon/3112a/1.0.0.28/10028.exe

Ran the file, extracted to floppy, pressed F6 during windows setup, and
everything went smoothly after that.

But I can't believe that Asus wouldn't provide a driver that, as far as I
can tell, is absolutely necessary in order to install the most popular
operating system in what is no doubt a fairly popular drive configuration
(single SATA hard drive).

So, am I just retarded or what? Or did Asus really drop the ball on this
one?

They dropped the ball on this one for sure, you can make the floppy from the
asus driver cd by copying the sata driver files to a floppy and using that.
I've just bought the same mobo as I had a spare athlon 2800 spare, its the
first board I've had that didn't come with a sata floppy disc.

 

[Mercury]

Go to www.siliconimage.com support , then resource centre, launch CRC, and
under "downloads" you will find latest driver.

Thanks. I did go to SI's website, then support, then *download* center, and
ended up at a dead end (3112 wasn't listed).

It didn't occur to me to try the resource center. (I figured all
downloadable files would be accessible from the download center... silly
me.)

 

[Wookie]

I just helped a friend put together an A8N SLI board two weeks ago and with
a Seagate SATA and SP2 there was no issue with this .. I think they must
have the SATA drivers figured out now.]

 

[bowse]

The driver DID come with the motherboard, simply load the Serial ATA
Driver from the the CD's menu and you're in business.

 

[Mercury]

The driver DID come with the motherboard, simply load the Serial ATA
Driver from the the CD's menu and you're in business.

Errrr... how exactly am I supposed to do that when I have no working OS?

 

[Jeannot]

You have to get the SATA driver from your motherboard CD and place it on a
1.44 disk.
When you boot to install Windows XP press F6 when asked.
You should not have any problem from then on.
Good luck

JC

 

[bowse]

Errrr... how exactly am I supposed to do that when I have no working OS?

You need no working OS, it's not needed. Provided you have your CD
set to the top of the boot stack, the machine should load the initial
bootloader off the CD and take off (provided the rest of your BIOS is
set properly). After all, the CD provided with the MB is intended to
be used on a new and untouched system and does not depend on your
having Windows installed or anything else. If this doesn't work you
can always make a set of XP boot floppies with another machine and try
those, but that's not the answer.

Then you will see the SATA driver in the menu, just install that (but
not the RAID utility), and probably the nVidea drivers also. After
you get it going visit the Asus website for most recent drivers &
re-install.

 

[FG]

But is the CD bootable ?

You need no working OS, it's not needed. Provided you have your CD
set to the top of the boot stack, the machine should load the initial
bootloader off the CD and take off (provided the rest of your BIOS is
set properly). After all, the CD provided with the MB is intended to
be used on a new and untouched system and does not depend on your
having Windows installed or anything else. If this doesn't work you
can always make a set of XP boot floppies with another machine and try
those, but that's not the answer.

Then you will see the SATA driver in the menu, just install that (but
not the RAID utility), and probably the nVidea drivers also. After
you get it going visit the Asus website for most recent drivers &
re-install.

 

[Mercury]

But is the CD bootable ?

No.

 

[Mercury]

You have to get the SATA driver from your motherboard CD and place it on a
1.44 disk.

That will work (as I discovered later), but should I really be expected to
figure out on my own which files are needed? If there was an easily
locatable makedisk utility on the CD, which would create the floppy, I
wouldn't be complaining. But having to pick out the files myself and copy
them to floppy manually seems... not user-friendly, to say the least.

 

[bowse]

But is the CD bootable ?

oF course it is. How else would you get a new system going??

 

[Mercury]

oF course it is. How else would you get a new system going??

Uhhh... by using a modern OS installation CD, which *is* bootable.

Unlike the Asus CD, which is most definitely *not* bootable. Believe me, I
tried.