I followed John John's instructions above exactly, with one exception.
Windows XP installed correctly on the IDE drive and I rebooted into
Windows. But I was unable to install the SATA drivers prior to
reinstalling the 2 SATA hard drives. There were not any RAID
controllers listed in Device Manager prior to installing the SATA
drives.
However, after reinstalling the two SATA drives, the RAID controller
appeared in Device Manager, but without any drivers. (Because of this,
I assume, the SATA drives did not show up at all in My Computer or
Disk Management.) When I tried to install the RAID drivers in Device
Manager, it did not recognize the driver I had downloaded as matching
the RAID controller. Perhaps the the RAID driver file that I
downloaded from the DFI website was the wrong one. Here is the link to
all the drivers for my motherboard:
http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/Download/driver_download_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3872&STATUS_FLAG=A&SITE=NA
The file I downloaded is named NF4 RAID F6.ZIP. (It's the 5th driver
down from the top of the page.) Can anyone tell me if this is the
correct file?
I hope that, if I can install the correct drivers, my problem will be
solved.
(One question for John and Anna in reply to their last interchange: I
mentioned above that, when I installed Windows on one of the SATA
drives, all 3 drives were correctly identified, and I never had to
install any drivers at all. I only had a problem when I tried to
install Windows on the IDE drive. Why would this be?)
If anyone could help me find the correct driver for the SATA/RAID
controller, it would definitely help.
John:
It may very well be that the lack of auxiliary SATA controller driversmay
not be at the root of Jeff's problem although from his description of the
problem it certainly sounds like it. When you say that (apparently) you did
not need to install such auxiliary SATA controller drivers, were you using
the *identical* make & model of Jeff's motherboard? You do understand,I
assume, that this is a capability of the motherboard, e.g., in some
motherboards the SATA controller drivers (at least as it involves a non-RAID
configuration) are integrated within the MB, while in other motherboards a
user must install an auxiliary SATA controller driver (the infamous F6
routine) for the system to recognize the existence of a SATA HDD.
Anna
I don't know why you would need drivers unless you installed an SATA
controler
card that is not built into the Mother Board. I just installed a couple of
them
myself a week ago and had no problem with the BIOS seeing the SATA drives. I
just stuck the new drive in on the new motherboard and booted to the Win-XP
CD
and I was on my way . . .
After Installing Win-XP and all the hardware devices - I then installed the
drivers from the CD that came with the MB.
Like you said . . . Let us know how it goes.
Thanks Anna and John John for your suggestions. It seems that both of
you agree that somehow the SATA controller drivers have not been
successfully installed. I'll be able to try these suggestions on
Friday and will update you on whether they work out.
Jeff:
The basic problem (at least as it seems to me) is that you've been
unsuccessful in installing the SATA controller drivers onto your PATA
(IDE)
HDD. Why you've been unsuccessful in doing so I don't know. Have you
carefully reviewed your motherboard's user guide dealing with whatever
sections relate to the installation of SATA HDDs with particular emphasis
on
the installation of SATA controller drivers?
In one of your previous postings I believe you mentioned that the
motherboard in question is a DFI model. If that is so, have you been in
touch with DFI's tech support re this issue? It might be worthwhileto do
so
if you're still unable to resolve this problem.
Anna
The BIOS can see all 3 drives at bootup.
I don't think there are any jumpers on SATA drives. I had a Microsoft
Certified Technician come in yesterday, and he said that he had set up
the "ribbon" cable and jumpers correctly for the IDE drive to boot.
(He couldn't fix the problem either and gave up after 6 hours.)
I haven't tried booting with the utility disk (Data Lifeguard). I
located the utility disk on WD's website. Do I use the DOS or Windows
utility? How do I use the disk to boot?
Why can I see all drives in Disk Management when I install Windows on
the SATA drive, but not see either of the SATA drives when I install
Windows on the IDE drive?
Dose you BIOS still see them at bootup?
Are the jumpers on the drives set correctly? (CS, master, slave)
Have you tried booting with the hard drive's utility disk (Max Blast,
Data
Lifeguard, Seatools etc)?
On 6 Mar 2007 07:30:10 -0800, "Jeff Y." <
[email protected]>
wrote:
No. The 2 SATA drives are completely missing there. Suggestions? I'm
getting desperate.
Can Widows "see" the drives in . . . Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Disk management . . . ?
On 5 Mar 2007 13:49:45 -0800, "Jeff Y." <
[email protected]>
wrote:
Bad news... I changed the boot drive to the IDE hard drive
(instead
of
the SATA drive) in the BIOS. I then tried to install Windowson
the
IDE drive from the Windows CD-ROM, and pressed F6 to load the
newest
SATA drivers. Windows began the installation with no problems,
including copying files. However, when setup rebooted to continue
the
installation, I got a DOS-type screen saying that, because of an
error, it could not continue Windows normally, and offered me the
choice of going into safe mode or trying the last good
configuration.
I tried to go into safe mode: it loaded the safe mode drivers,
then
rebooted itself before actually getting to the safe mode Windows
log-
in screen. This happened twice. The same thing happened whenI
tried
the Last Known Good Configuration.
I then tried to install Windows again on the IDE drive without the
SATA drivers. The installation completed perfectly. But Windows
could
not "see" the other two drives as even existing. I checked My
Computer
and the Disk Managament console. They only listed one hard drive
(the
IDE drive) instead of 3.
What can I try next? I can't figure out what's going wrong.
Thanks for all the help. I'll be able to try it out on Monday.
On Mar 3, 10:18 am, "dobey" <
[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions. I understand everything except:
"you can
then format XP off the SATA." Can you explain in a little
more
detail
what that means and how to do it?
After you boot into XP which is installed on the IDE drive, go
into
Administrative tools > Computer management > Disk management
then
select the
SATA drive and format it. This will remove all of the files on
the HDD in
the process.
I hope you have labeled you drives/partitions so you know
which
one is
which. Makes it harder to accidentally delete or format a
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