SATA HD is not recognized

[na]

My Vista Ultimate failed to boot. Every time my computer boots up I
got "Boot Disk Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter" error.
The HD is Western Digital SATA II Caviar SE17 (WD2500KS). I also ran
WD's diagnostics utility and no error was found on the disk. When I
used Windows Vista DVD and selected "Repair Your Computer" option,
Windows did not detect any hard drive partition and operating system.
I have another SATA drive, it was also not recognized by Windows
Vista. Both drive had Windows Ultimate installed previously. These
drives are less than 6 month old, so they can't be damaged. Can
someone help?

 

[Richard Urban]

When you boot from the Vista DVD you will have to install the requisite SATA
drivers to enable the Vista installer to detect your drives.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[na]

Thank you for the reply. The SATA drive was previously recognized by
Vista without a driver. This drive does not have driver from Western
Digital. Thanks.

 

[Richard Urban]

The driver is for the M/B chipset. If you have a Silicon Image chipset, you
need drivers for their SATA chipset. If it is by another manufacturer you
will need those drivers.

If you are successfully booted into Vista the drivers that are installed
will be used. If you have not yet booted into Vista, as when you are booting
from the DVD - the drivers are inaccessible. Therefore you must supply the
drivers which you have placed on a floppy. a CD, a DVD or a USB thumb drive.
After you have directed the installer to where you have the drivers the
installer will be able to see the drives.

You will have to make these drivers available after the first reboot -
during the install - also. The first viewing places them in RAM, which is
flushed during the reboot. The second viewing copies them to the hard drive
where they are used from by the operating system.

Note that "some" newer M/B's have the drivers hard encoded into the chipset
and you will not have to supply the drivers during setup.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[na]

I am confused. I am at the Startup Repair screen. The drive should
have been picked up by Vista without a driver. My motherboard is
Gigabyte 7NNXP with nForce2. I just inserted the original NVidia CD
and found no driver for the SATA drive. My quest is how Vista
recognized the SATA driver the last time I installed it, and now it
does not recognize it. The lack of a driver does not seem to be the
source of problem.

 

[Richard Urban]

When you boot from the DVD Vista is not even running. Therefore the drivers
can not be used. Vista, in fact, is invisible to the Vista install DVD
until you direct the installed DVD to where you have the drivers.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Richard Urban]

BTW, I have an Nforce 2 M/B. You **definitely** have to supply the drivers
when you boot from the DVD.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Andy]

The GA-7NNXP uses the SiI3112 - PCI to 2 Port SATA150 interface chip.
Use the appropriate driver from
<http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=63&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=10&>.

 

[OldBoy]

Buy a new battery for your MB

 

[na]

Ok, you are right that I need to load the Silicon Graphic's SATA
driver. I downloaded the Windows BASE Driver for Vista (SiI3x12 32-bit
version 1.3.67.0) and Windows SATARAID Driver (Sil3x12 32 bit
1.0.60.0)) from Silicon Image and loaded the driver, my Western
Digital SATA drive was still not recognized by Windows Vista. I have
the M/B OnBoard RAID enabled and set it to RAID, instead of BASE.
Does that mean the hard disk is fried, or some configurations are
wrong with Windows Vista? Thank you for your help.

 

[Andy]

Set Serial ATA Function to BASE, and use the BASE driver.

 

[na]

Thank you. I just did an XP installation from scratch. During the
boot sequence, I hit F6 and installed additional device for Sil 3112.
Windoz XP recognized the drive. Now I remember when I install Vista
last time. It was an upgrade from XP to Vista. Now the interesting
thing is that why XP recognizes the SATA drive, but not a fresh new
installation of Vista. I am going to repeat the process and upgrade
XP to Vista to see if the SATA drive can be recognized.