Unable to detect SATA hard disk during XP installation

[Josh]

I have a Seagate 120GB Serial ATA hard disk connected to
a Gigabyte 7VT600-1394 AMD motherboard. At the moment the
BIOS recognizes the hard drive and I have been able to
successfully install Windows 98 SE. However, I wish to
use Windows XP Professional and everytime I go into
Setup, it tells me it cannot find a hard drive installed.
I have used Seagate's DriveMaster Wizard to prepare the
drive, but has not made a difference. I assume I need to
start drivers before XP Setup begins but I'm not sure
how. It uses a VIA 8237 Series ATA chip for SATA.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Josh

 

[Pete Baker]

Hi Josh

In order to install XP (of either flavour) you need to follow a particular
method to install the SATA drivers.

You'll need to have the SATA drivers available on a floppy disk ready for
the install process - if your mainboard manufacturer has not supplied a
floppy disk with the drivers you'll find them on your mainboard CD or
manufacturers website.

Make sure that, if you need to copy onto a floppy disk, you transfer all the
files from the SATA driver folder - special attention needed to ensure you
include all relevant files.

Check your mainboard manual for the appropriate BIOS settings for booting
from SATA.

As the XP set-up begins you will be prompted to 'Press F6 to specify
third-party RAID or SCSI drivers' - at this point you should press F6 and,
when asked, insert the floppy disk with the relevant drivers. Select the
appropriate driver when asked and continue with the setup. There may be
some delays during this process and the set-up may appear to be continuing
without recognising the key-press - so don't panic.

When successful you'll be able to select the HD to install on. If you are
not given the HD you have not completed the procedure correctly. Check you
are using the correct drivers, have any relevant BIOS updates for your
mainboard, and try again.

Hope that helps
Pete

 

[Bob Harris]

To build on the previous reply, here are some notes that I made when
installing XP on a Seagate 120 SATA connected to an ASUS P4S8X motherboard:

Drivers must be on a floppy, not on a CDROM. Apparently it is not enough to
have the drivers themeselves and an INF file. No, no! One needs some dumb
file called "oemsetup.txt". I solve the problem by copying the contents of
the entire PROMISE directory from the motherboard CD onto a floppy, then
replace the XP drivers with the most recent ones from the motherboard
maker's support. Then, I tried the XP installation and things worked well.

Also, you have very little time to hit F6, so watch carefully for the prompt
about third-party drivers (SCSI and RAID).