Do I need drivers for a SATA drive?

[Igor]

I'm building a new system using the K8N-E Deluxe motherboard. I am
considering buying a SATA drive (not planning on using it in any RAID
configuration).
Do I hear correctly that I will need to install Windows drivers in order to
get the drive to work?
This might seem like a dumb question but how would I load Windows onto a
blank drive if the drive won't work without having the drivers installed?
Someone told me this is the reason I will still need to have a floppy drive
on my system. I'm not really sure that makes sense.

Thanks, John

 

[Pete D]

I guess if you told us what version of Windows you you are using then we
might be able to tell you. If XP then it will not be needed.

 

[Igor]

Sorry and yes, XP Home Edition with SP2

I guess if you told us what version of Windows you you are using then we
might be able to tell you. If XP then it will not be needed.

 

[Martin]

Yes, you need drivers. They are included on the ASUS cd, which has a utility
to make a floppy disk with the SATA/RAID drivers (for the NVIDIA controller.
There's also a promise controller on this board). When booting from the
windows cd, you immediately get the option to load special drivers by
pressing F6. Then you use that floppy...
On your board are two SATA controllers. I think it's best to connect your
SATA drive to the NVDIA controller.

Martin
The Netherlands

 

[Courseyauto]

I'm building a new system using the K8N-E Deluxe motherboard. I am
considering buying a SATA drive (not planning on using it in any RAID
configuration).
Do I hear correctly that I will need to install Windows drivers in order
to
get the drive to work?
This might seem like a dumb question but how would I load Windows onto a
blank drive if the drive won't work without having the drivers installed?
Someone told me this is the reason I will still need to have a floppy
drive
on my system. I'm not really sure that makes sense.

Thanks, John

There are no Sata or SCSI drivers in XP. You will need to have the driver on
a floppy,and hit F6 when asked when first installing the OS. Even if you are
not going to use raid you need the drivers so XP will recognize the drive.
DOUG

 

[m.marien]

There are no Sata or SCSI drivers in XP. You will need to have the driver
on
a floppy,and hit F6 when asked when first installing the OS. Even if you
are
not going to use raid you need the drivers so XP will recognize the drive.
DOUG

Be sure to use the correct drivers. There are different drivers for just
SATA and SATA RAID. You also have to have the correct settings in the BIOS.
The SATA drivers won't work if you have the BIOS set to RAID.

Is this getting too complicated ? What ever happened to thet plug n play
stuff ?

 

[Ender]

I'm building a new system using the K8N-E Deluxe motherboard. I am
considering buying a SATA drive (not planning on using it in any RAID
configuration).
Do I hear correctly that I will need to install Windows drivers in order to
get the drive to work?
This might seem like a dumb question but how would I load Windows onto a
blank drive if the drive won't work without having the drivers installed?
Someone told me this is the reason I will still need to have a floppy drive
on my system. I'm not really sure that makes sense.

Thanks, John

Wow, you have gotten a whole range of answers for this. You do NOT
need to go through the F6 (third party drivers) when using a SATA
drive in a non-raid setup. Windows XP will detect the drive fine
without any special drivers. As with most newer systems, it will be
necessary to provide XP with chipset drivers for your board once the
initial installation is done, just as you would if you were using an
EIDE drive.

Ender

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

 

[Martin]

I really think you're mistaken. I've installed two systems with the F6
option the last week... If the SATA drive is the only drive in the system
and you want to do a new Windows install on it, you will need to load the
drivers from disk.
You would have been right if you add a SATA drive to an existing system.

 

[Ender]

I really think you're mistaken. I've installed two systems with the F6
option the last week... If the SATA drive is the only drive in the system
and you want to do a new Windows install on it, you will need to load the
drivers from disk.
You would have been right if you add a SATA drive to an existing system.

Many people agree with you. The reality is, in a clean install of XP,
if your bios can see it, XP will also. It worked that way for me in a
clean 745P chipset install, and also an A7N8X (Nvidia Chipset) both
with WD 74G Raptor SATA drives. I asked the same question when
building my first systemswith a SATA boot drive and received a mixed
venue of advice. The response from ASUS was: You can do it with or
without installing drivers at the F6 prompt. They did point out that
If you wish to do a "RAID ready" install, you can install the provided
drivers at the F6 prompt, but if you have no intention of running RAID
then you can skip that step. Windows XP will use the drivers:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\disk.sys
c:\windows\system32\drivers\PartMgr.sys

Regards,

Ender

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

 

[Martin]

I will remember that for my next install, in a year or so ;-)
Must say, it's the first time I hear this. I does explain the poor
explanation in the mobo's manual though... They only mention needing a disk
for a SATA/RAID install. I thought that meant: SATA or RAID...

 

[Ender]

I will remember that for my next install, in a year or so ;-)
Must say, it's the first time I hear this. I does explain the poor
explanation in the mobo's manual though... They only mention needing a disk
for a SATA/RAID install. I thought that meant: SATA or RAID...

Good luck Martin, hope it has gone well! Hopefully you will not need
a new install so soon!

Regards,

Ender

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

 

[m.marien]

Many people agree with you. The reality is, in a clean install of XP,
if your bios can see it, XP will also. It worked that way for me in a
clean 745P chipset install, and also an A7N8X (Nvidia Chipset) both
with WD 74G Raptor SATA drives. I asked the same question when
building my first systemswith a SATA boot drive and received a mixed
venue of advice. The response from ASUS was: You can do it with or
without installing drivers at the F6 prompt. They did point out that
If you wish to do a "RAID ready" install, you can install the provided
drivers at the F6 prompt, but if you have no intention of running RAID
then you can skip that step. Windows XP will use the drivers:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\disk.sys
c:\windows\system32\drivers\PartMgr.sys

Depends on the chipset I guess. WinXP required drivers for the Promise SATA
on my K8V. I also can't install WinXP64 on my Promise SATA because it
doesn't find any drives and doesn't have drivers. I installed it on an PATA
drive. There was a special compile of SuSE 9.0 x86_64 with Promise SATA
drivers. etc. Maybe it's just the Promise chipset.

 

[Ender]

Depends on the chipset I guess. WinXP required drivers for the Promise SATA

on my K8V. I also can't install WinXP64 on my Promise SATA because it
doesn't find any drives and doesn't have drivers. I installed it on an PATA
drive. There was a special compile of SuSE 9.0 x86_64 with Promise SATA
drivers. etc. Maybe it's just the Promise chipset.

I think you are correct on that one. I know for sure that the Intel
IHC5 controller installs XP on a clean SATA boot drive with the native
XP drivers, and the A7N8X Deluxe seemed to handle it fine, (don't
remember what controller is on that board), but after looking this
thread over I did some searching into a number of forums and you and
the other guys are right on target. It seems some of the controllers
will not allow installation of a SATA drive without an F6 call for
specific drivers. In any event, it sounds like Martin got it all
installed following yours and others good advice so that is a good
thing. Thanks for the follow up post.

Regards,

Ender
____
[____]
(OIIIIIIO)
[] []

 

[Igor]

Thanks everyone for the good information. I thought the day had come when
we don't need to have a floppy drive on our systems anymore but I guess this
is one reason to keep it. Too bad we couldn't have the option to press F6
and load the drivers straight from the Asus CD using a second CD/DVD drive.
Or couldn't they be flashed onto a chip on the motherboard.
I will use my old hard drives to build this and maybe buy a SATA drive
later. If it becomes too complicated to use the SATA for my boot drive then
I will use it as a secondary drive to record television to. But it sounds
like it should work fine as the boot drive, just some new things for me to
learn.
Does anyone here have any experience using Geil Value Dual Channel memory on
this motherboard (K8N-E Deluxe)? I do realize that this board does not
support the dual channel memory mode but it still seems like decent memory
and inexpensive compared to other brands. I've read some good reviews for
it online.

Thanks again, John

 

[Martin]

My own PC is a a7n8x deluxe. It has a Silicon Image controller... I
installed it with the F6 option. But apparently that wasn't necessary, cause
you installed it without that.
I did notice that, once in windows, the controller got recognised and
installed. There's an entry in the configution screen of windows now. That
didn't happen on the K8N board (using the NVDIA controller).

--
Martin
The Netherlands

Depends on the chipset I guess. WinXP required drivers for the Promise
SATA
on my K8V. I also can't install WinXP64 on my Promise SATA because it
doesn't find any drives and doesn't have drivers. I installed it on an
PATA
drive. There was a special compile of SuSE 9.0 x86_64 with Promise SATA
drivers. etc. Maybe it's just the Promise chipset.

I think you are correct on that one. I know for sure that the Intel
IHC5 controller installs XP on a clean SATA boot drive with the native
XP drivers, and the A7N8X Deluxe seemed to handle it fine, (don't
remember what controller is on that board), but after looking this
thread over I did some searching into a number of forums and you and
the other guys are right on target. It seems some of the controllers
will not allow installation of a SATA drive without an F6 call for
specific drivers. In any event, it sounds like Martin got it all
installed following yours and others good advice so that is a good
thing. Thanks for the follow up post.

Regards,

Ender
____
[____]
(OIIIIIIO)
[] []

 

[MM]

Wow, you have gotten a whole range of answers for this. You do NOT
need to go through the F6 (third party drivers) when using a SATA
drive in a non-raid setup. Windows XP will detect the drive fine
without any special drivers.

Didn't work for me when I was installing XP on K8V SE Deluxe. I guess it
might depend on the XP CD. The one I have is XP SP1. The ones on sale now
are XP SP2... Perhaps, SP2 includes support for SATA...

/MM

 

[Courseyauto]

Wow, you have gotten a whole range of answers for this. You do NOT
need to go through the F6 (third party drivers) when using a SATA
drive in a non-raid setup. Windows XP will detect the drive fine
without any special drivers.

Didn't work for me when I was installing XP on K8V SE Deluxe. I guess it
might depend on the XP CD. The one I have is XP SP1. The ones on sale now
are XP SP2... Perhaps, SP2 includes support for SATA...

/MM
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Didn' work for me either wth XP Pro SP/1. I was able to asign it to an IDE
channel but then lost use of that channel for other IDE drives. I know for
sure if you use the silicon image sata controller you need a Base or raid
driver. If you use the Intel ICH5R controller you also need the IAA raid
edition drivers. DOUG

 

[Martin]

I installed a SATA drive in a K8N deluxe (with a SATA driver), installed
Windows and later installed an IDE drive. The Bios automatically set that
IDE drive as the boot drive (so I couldn't boot anymore)... Then I found an
option in the BIOS to make the SATA drive the first drive again. That's
another option then the boot sequence!

 

[Chris Catt]

Hi, doesn't work for me either with a slipstreamed SP2 and a Asus A8V.
Refused to detect a hard drive so I had to go back and press F6. Maybe this
feature of SP2 is dependant upon the sata chip being used, ie via, promise
or intel....
Chris C

 

[Courseyauto]

Hi, doesn't work for me either with a slipstreamed SP2 and a Asus A8V.
Refused to detect a hard drive so I had to go back and press F6. Maybe this
feature of SP2 is dependant upon the sata chip being used, ie via, promise
or intel....
Chris C
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Doesn't matter which SATA controller your motherboard uses,XP does not have any
SATA drivers. DOUG