SATA Drives?

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi,

I'm due to build a machine that has a SATA drive next week, and it
suddenly occurrs to me that a TXTMODE driver may be needed, otherwise
how can Win2k see the drive during TXT mode portion of setup?

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

That's not necessarily the case. I didn't have to add drivers for the Dell
Optiplex SX280, which uses a SATA drive.

Oli

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Oli,

That's not necessarily the case. I didn't have to add drivers for the Dell
Optiplex SX280, which uses a SATA drive.

Well that's great news in a way, but how can it work? Does the SATA
controller emulate standard PC BIOS at boot time or something?

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

I'm not so sure. To be honest, I never considered that it might have been a
problem and just marched ahead doing my deployment the normal way.

Oli

 

[Dave Patrick]

You'll want to boot the Windows 2000 setup disks or CD-Rom. The set of four
install disks can be created from your Windows 2000 CD-Rom; change to the
\bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute makeboot.exe (from dos) or
makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the prompts.

Then *F6* very early and very important (at setup is inspecting your system)
in the setup to prevent drive controller detection, and select S to specify
additional drivers. Then later you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer
supplied Windows 2000 driver for your serial ATA controller in drive "A"

When you get to the point, delete the existing NTFS and or other partitions
found. After you delete the partition(s) abort the install, then again
restart the pc booting the CD-Rom or setup disks to avoid unexpected drive
letter assignments with your new install.


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

| Well that's great news in a way, but how can it work? Does the SATA
| controller emulate standard PC BIOS at boot time or something?
|
| --
| Gerry Hickman (London UK)

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Dave,

I'm a bit confused reading this? Why do we need makebt32.exe?

I understand the use of F6, as I've built a few SCSI boxes in the past,
but I was fairly sure you could access this feature even when booting
from the CD-ROM?

In the final para, I'm confused again where you talk about deleting
existing partitions and "aborting the install". As far as I know, when
using a bootable CD, you can delete them, recreate them, format them and
carry on with the install without having to reboot?

Anyway, I tested this on a Dell GX280 today with SATA, and as Oli says
above, it worked fine without any special drivers. Whether it's using
the correct drivers (or running in some kind of legacy emulation mode)
is a different matter! Actually I didn't install any SATA drivers so
something must not be right.

I did notice something a bit odd in Device manager, TWO primary and TWO
secondary "IDE" controllers! Not sure what's going on there, but they
all claimed the device was "working properly". The machine seems to run
pretty fast.

Actually, this was just a sloppy "test" build to see if it would boot at
all. I intend to do a proper build with all the correct PnP drivers
after Christmas. PnP drivers, I'm not worried about though, it's if I
have to get involved with TXTSETUP.OEM (.SIF) (or what ever it's
called). That's when I start getting worried

 

[Dave Patrick]

:
| Hi Dave,
|
| I'm a bit confused reading this? Why do we need makebt32.exe?
* You don't unless you need to create setup floppies.

| I understand the use of F6, as I've built a few SCSI boxes in the past,
| but I was fairly sure you could access this feature even when booting
| from the CD-ROM?
* Yes shouldn't be a problem.

| In the final para, I'm confused again where you talk about deleting
| existing partitions and "aborting the install". As far as I know, when
| using a bootable CD, you can delete them, recreate them, format them and
| carry on with the install without having to reboot?
* On some systems the drive letters may not be released for the new install
hence the safegard of the reboot.

| Anyway, I tested this on a Dell GX280 today with SATA, and as Oli says
| above, it worked fine without any special drivers. Whether it's using
| the correct drivers (or running in some kind of legacy emulation mode)
| is a different matter! Actually I didn't install any SATA drivers so
| something must not be right.
* I'm suprised it works if the controller is not on the HCL. Was the correct
controller identified during text mode?

| I did notice something a bit odd in Device manager, TWO primary and TWO
| secondary "IDE" controllers! Not sure what's going on there, but they
| all claimed the device was "working properly". The machine seems to run
| pretty fast.
* It will be interesting to see if this goes away if you F6 and supply the
Dell supplied controller driver.


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

Interesting that you say that. Some people have been reporting mouse issues
(like the pointer wandering) on XP SP2 machines with SATA drives, and my
machine at work certainly exhibits this behaviour. I wonder if these issues
might disappear if I change the storage driver.

Oli

 

[Dave Patrick]

Possible but the chances of SATA drivers being included on the XP install
CD-Rom are pretty good as opposed to Windows 2000. If I recall correctly
serial ATA didn't exist when Windows 2000 was released. The general rule for
Windows 2000 was if it isn't an IDE drive then you probably need to F6

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Interesting that you say that. Some people have been reporting mouse
issues
| (like the pointer wandering) on XP SP2 machines with SATA drives, and my
| machine at work certainly exhibits this behaviour. I wonder if these
issues
| might disappear if I change the storage driver.
|
| Oli

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

Good call. I think you're probably right.

Cheers

Oli

 

[Ken B]

Oli-

Are you using a Logitech (optical) track ball at work? I don't have a sata
drive, but my pointer wanders every so often 'til I shake it to wake it

Happy Holidays

Ken

Interesting that you say that. Some people have been reporting mouse
issues (like the pointer wandering) on XP SP2 machines with SATA drives,
and my machine at work certainly exhibits this behaviour. I wonder if
these issues might disappear if I change the storage driver.

Oli

:
| Hi Dave,
|
| I'm a bit confused reading this? Why do we need makebt32.exe?
* You don't unless you need to create setup floppies.

| I understand the use of F6, as I've built a few SCSI boxes in the past,
| but I was fairly sure you could access this feature even when booting
| from the CD-ROM?
* Yes shouldn't be a problem.

| In the final para, I'm confused again where you talk about deleting
| existing partitions and "aborting the install". As far as I know, when
| using a bootable CD, you can delete them, recreate them, format them
and
| carry on with the install without having to reboot?
* On some systems the drive letters may not be released for the new
install
hence the safegard of the reboot.

| Anyway, I tested this on a Dell GX280 today with SATA, and as Oli says
| above, it worked fine without any special drivers. Whether it's using
| the correct drivers (or running in some kind of legacy emulation mode)
| is a different matter! Actually I didn't install any SATA drivers so
| something must not be right.
* I'm suprised it works if the controller is not on the HCL. Was the
correct
controller identified during text mode?

| I did notice something a bit odd in Device manager, TWO primary and TWO
| secondary "IDE" controllers! Not sure what's going on there, but they
| all claimed the device was "working properly". The machine seems to run
| pretty fast.
* It will be interesting to see if this goes away if you F6 and supply
the
Dell supplied controller driver.


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi All,

Well guess what? It all went horribly wrong! Just goes to show you can't
take anything for granted when it comes to computers. I'd tested my CD
before I went away on a SATA machine (and so had Oli from this group),
but we both had GX280s. I'm now thinking these boxes must have some kind
of emulation - I don't know.

I went away for Christmas, and took the bootable CD with me. Bought some
computer components to build a PC for the family. ASUS K8V-X with "SATA
RAID". Using the existing ATX case, so backed everything up, took out
mainboard and hard drive. Added new mainboard and new SATA drive, looks
fine in BIOS and "RAID screen", tested with bootable DOS floppy and
FDISK (all seems to work - hard drive can be seen and partitioned).
Deleted test partitions.

Boot up from my boot CD, loads all the drivers, then says "No hard
drives could be found!" Hmmm, that's not good.

I then realize ASUS don't give you a floppy with the SATA driver, you
are supposed to run a utility to create the floppy, but I don't have a
working computer anymore! Put the old IDE hard drive in the new computer
and get "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE"! Have to install the whole of Windows
to the very old and slow IDE drive just to be able to run the ASUS
"makedisk" utility. (I tried to extract the files from the CD under DOS
but it's not that simple).

So I now have the driver disk, boot from CD, press F6, feed in the
floppy (not sure what you're supposed to do if you don't have a
floppy?), Windows text mode starts running, accepts the floppy, loads a
few more drivers, allows me to partition and format, (except the format
goes way too fast for my liking) then says "cannot copy VIASRAID.SYS".

After messing around for a while and getting nowhere, I decided to swap
the new SATA drive for an ATA133 one the next day, and after that it was
fine.

I still have no idea why it didn't work. Possible reasons:

1. You can't use ASUS SATA RAID with only one drive?
2. Something not right with their drivers floppy
3. Some other kind of hardware issue

It was good the shop let me change the drive for an IDE one. The guy in
the shop blamed Windows 2000, saying "it would have been fine in XP".

 

[Dave Patrick]

Looking at the readme.txt file, I concur that you would have needed two SATA
drives.

VIA VT6420 SATA RAID and IDE controller supports two configurations:1) Two
SATA HDDs + Two IDE HDDs, and 2) Four SATA HDDs. The RAID functions are only
supported on SATA HDDs. It supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hi All,
|
| Well guess what? It all went horribly wrong! Just goes to show you can't
| take anything for granted when it comes to computers. I'd tested my CD
| before I went away on a SATA machine (and so had Oli from this group),
| but we both had GX280s. I'm now thinking these boxes must have some kind
| of emulation - I don't know.
|
| I went away for Christmas, and took the bootable CD with me. Bought some
| computer components to build a PC for the family. ASUS K8V-X with "SATA
| RAID". Using the existing ATX case, so backed everything up, took out
| mainboard and hard drive. Added new mainboard and new SATA drive, looks
| fine in BIOS and "RAID screen", tested with bootable DOS floppy and
| FDISK (all seems to work - hard drive can be seen and partitioned).
| Deleted test partitions.
|
| Boot up from my boot CD, loads all the drivers, then says "No hard
| drives could be found!" Hmmm, that's not good.
|
| I then realize ASUS don't give you a floppy with the SATA driver, you
| are supposed to run a utility to create the floppy, but I don't have a
| working computer anymore! Put the old IDE hard drive in the new computer
| and get "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE"! Have to install the whole of Windows
| to the very old and slow IDE drive just to be able to run the ASUS
| "makedisk" utility. (I tried to extract the files from the CD under DOS
| but it's not that simple).
|
| So I now have the driver disk, boot from CD, press F6, feed in the
| floppy (not sure what you're supposed to do if you don't have a
| floppy?), Windows text mode starts running, accepts the floppy, loads a
| few more drivers, allows me to partition and format, (except the format
| goes way too fast for my liking) then says "cannot copy VIASRAID.SYS".
|
| After messing around for a while and getting nowhere, I decided to swap
| the new SATA drive for an ATA133 one the next day, and after that it was
| fine.
|
| I still have no idea why it didn't work. Possible reasons:
|
| 1. You can't use ASUS SATA RAID with only one drive?
| 2. Something not right with their drivers floppy
| 3. Some other kind of hardware issue
|
| It was good the shop let me change the drive for an IDE one. The guy in
| the shop blamed Windows 2000, saying "it would have been fine in XP".

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Dave,

I also read that file, but surely they should make it much clearer if
that's the case? They should have a big warning on the side of the box
saying "requires two drives for SATA" or something? I can't believe
everyone that buys this board would instantly realise they need two
drives to make it work. Since there's no SATA separate to the "RAID", it
rules out being able to use one SATA drive...

I guess I chose the wrong board

Further to this, the "RAID Screen" in the BIOS should have a big error
message if only one drive is connected (if two are needed), but instead
it just indicates everything is fine. I also read in the manual the
controller supports "JBOD" which I thought would mean "normal" volumes...

 

[Dave Patrick]

Were you able to get anywhere with the VIA RAID Tool (raid_tool.exe) Does
the controller bios have any sort of setup you can access at POST?

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hi Dave,
|
| I also read that file, but surely they should make it much clearer if
| that's the case? They should have a big warning on the side of the box
| saying "requires two drives for SATA" or something? I can't believe
| everyone that buys this board would instantly realise they need two
| drives to make it work. Since there's no SATA separate to the "RAID", it
| rules out being able to use one SATA drive...
|
| I guess I chose the wrong board
|
| Further to this, the "RAID Screen" in the BIOS should have a big error
| message if only one drive is connected (if two are needed), but instead
| it just indicates everything is fine. I also read in the manual the
| controller supports "JBOD" which I thought would mean "normal" volumes...

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Dave,

Were you able to get anywhere with the VIA RAID Tool (raid_tool.exe)

I didn't really look into it properly; there was one shopping day left
'till Christmas so I gave up and bought the IDE drive instead. I had to
get it working in a hurry. If it had been my own box I could have done
some low-level diags to find out what was going on.

Does
the controller bios have any sort of setup you can access at POST?

Yup, you can view the RAID setup from within the BIOS. All it said was
something like "Maxtor found on Channel0". Options to create an array
were greyed out (as you'd expect with only one drive in the system).

I'm confused as to why DOS FDISK could see the drive and partition it
without any problems, but Win2k was not able to until I'd loaded the
text mode driver. Unfortunately, I didn't actually try to format it
under DOS.

I just assumed any mainsteam mainboard with a SATA controller would have
an option to run with just one SATA drive. I under estimated the
importance of the word "RAID".

In the case of the Dell's it's strange. It works in both text mode and
PnP mode without any driver at all, installing the PnP driver would be
easy (even at build time), but I wonder about the implications of not
using their text-mode driver (if such a thing exists)? Could it be that
creating text-mode partitions, and creating large tex-mode volumes
without using the correct text-mode driver could somehow leave you with
a damaged setup? I remember a long time back installing NT4 to an
Adaptec SCSI system, forgot to press F6 and it worked fine (except it
didn't - after writing past a high numbered sector it suddenly
blue-screened). After pressing F6 and using the correct driver it was fine.

 

[Dave Patrick]

It may vary depending on the controller manufacturer and driver. I have an
older Dell that has an integrated Adaptec raid controller which I wanted to
dual-boot. It happily allowed me to create two separate raid 0
configurations out of two 9 gB scsi drives.

On the Dell I don't really have an answer but I've seen it many times here
in these win2000.* groups where Windows setup completes some, or in some
cases all, of the text mode portion only to blue screen (0x7b) at the next
phase. I think I would be really skeptical of that install since there is no
chance that the controller is natively supported by Windows 2000

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hi Dave,
|
| > Were you able to get anywhere with the VIA RAID Tool (raid_tool.exe)
|
| I didn't really look into it properly; there was one shopping day left
| 'till Christmas so I gave up and bought the IDE drive instead. I had to
| get it working in a hurry. If it had been my own box I could have done
| some low-level diags to find out what was going on.
|
| > Does
| > the controller bios have any sort of setup you can access at POST?
|
| Yup, you can view the RAID setup from within the BIOS. All it said was
| something like "Maxtor found on Channel0". Options to create an array
| were greyed out (as you'd expect with only one drive in the system).
|
| I'm confused as to why DOS FDISK could see the drive and partition it
| without any problems, but Win2k was not able to until I'd loaded the
| text mode driver. Unfortunately, I didn't actually try to format it
| under DOS.
|
| I just assumed any mainsteam mainboard with a SATA controller would have
| an option to run with just one SATA drive. I under estimated the
| importance of the word "RAID".
|
| In the case of the Dell's it's strange. It works in both text mode and
| PnP mode without any driver at all, installing the PnP driver would be
| easy (even at build time), but I wonder about the implications of not
| using their text-mode driver (if such a thing exists)? Could it be that
| creating text-mode partitions, and creating large tex-mode volumes
| without using the correct text-mode driver could somehow leave you with
| a damaged setup? I remember a long time back installing NT4 to an
| Adaptec SCSI system, forgot to press F6 and it worked fine (except it
| didn't - after writing past a high numbered sector it suddenly
| blue-screened). After pressing F6 and using the correct driver it was
fine.
|
| --
| Gerry Hickman (London UK)