Leo,
Firstly, there are 3 variants of the K8V - the information here pertains to
the K8V
You will need the VIA SATA drivers on floppy. You have to choose between
either the Promise Controller or the VIA SATA controller and since the
Promise is entitled "Promise RAID" this suggests that its intention is RAID
(not necessarily, but you have to choose... so I am suggesting the VIA one).
Check your drive is plugged into the appropriate VIA SATA socket on the
motherboard see manual page 1-23 and 1-22 which highlights where the Promise
controller connectors are.
In the BIOS manual, page 2-21: On Chip SATA Boot - enable.
If you are not using the Promise controller then disable it.
Boot Menu, page 2-30, Boot Priority. The manual shows in the diagram 2.6.1
Floppy first, PM-ST320413A second and Asus CD third. Change the second item
to the device that corresponds to the OnChip SATA controller. Personally I
do not like having Floppy as a boot device - it is rarely ever used, so you
could configure the first boot device to point to the VIA controller.
Page 3-7 makes reference to configuring the VIA RAID, however with a single
disc you can't have RAID... Page 3-20 details where on CD the files are kept
for each SATA controller. Sometimes it is necessary to configure a single
disc RAID - it depends on the controller.
As is often the case, the manual makes no mention (from a quick glance) of
how simply to configure the system for a single disc SATA boot. So you may
have to play around a bit. Things that are commonly not right are: not
plugging the drive into the right controller / channel, not loading the
right drives, not setting the BOOT options appropriately and so on. A common
issue in loading the drivers is that you press F6, insert the floppy but
then don't cause the drivers to be loaded - if they load you will hear the
floppy groan, and it will ask again if you want to load [another] driver.
Leave the floppy in the drive as it is often asked for a second time.
HTH
- Tim
