Quick checklist:
1) Is there native S-ATA support?
Some chipsets natively support S-ATA, and in turn are natively
supported by XP. Others have additional controller chips added to
confer S-ATA support to a mobo chipset that otherwise lacks this.
The latter can be a problem if BIOS doesn't see the added controller
as bootable, and/or XP doesn't natively support it. It is in this
situation that you may also have to "enable the S-ATA BIOS".
Early in the XP installation process, there's a prompt to keypress if
you need "special" drivers for the controller of the HD that the OS is
to see at boot time. You are then expected to provide these drivers,
controversially on diskette. The installation process then renames
these to a generic OS-known name in C:\ so that they can be used early
in the boot process. Without this, ?no joy.
2) Is S-ATA enabled in CMOS?
3) What S-ATA vs. UIDE relationship is defined in CMOS?
Many motherboards with S-ATA will also have UIDE, and these can be set
to interact in various ways; usually...
- legacy mode; S-ATA overlay UIDE identities
- enhanced mode; can use all UIDE and all S-ATA
- RAID; both S-ATA used as a single RAID unit
Older OSs such as Win98 may require legacy mode, where you can use one
OR the other of S-ATA and corresponding UIDE "position". For example,
S-ATA 0 would overlay UIDE Primary Master, while S-ATA 1 may overlay
either UIDE Primary Slave or UIDE Secondary Master.
In this situation, if you had a UIDE primary Master and S-ATA 0 they
would clash, a S-ATA 0 would boot before UIDE Secondary Master, and a
UIDE Primary Master would boot before S-ATA 1.
If you're using enhanced mode, then you may be able to use all UIDE
and S-ATA identities for separate devices at the same time. In this
case, whether S-ATA or UIDE boots first would likely be an explicit
setting in CMOS, as would be the case for S-ATA RAID.
Enabling S-ATA RAID adds the requirements of RAID, and may also cause
a BIOS extension to become active during POST.
4) What is the boot device order?
5) Are your S-ATA cabled correctly?
Careful with power connections in particular. Many S-ATA HDs offer
both new S-ATA power and old legacy power connectors. Don't use both,
and don't use legacy if you plan on hot- or cool-swapping (assuming
those are supported at all, they will require S-ATA power connection).
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Who is General Failure and
why is he reading my disk?