Western Digital SATA 120

[_MARK_]

I am installing a WD 1200 Sata drive. The machine already has 2 IDE drives
configured as master and slave. I configured the SATA as master and the
ASUS board recognizes the IDE drives as primary and secondary boot devices.
It recognizes the SATA as Primary drive 3. Using WD tools I formatted the
SATA drive and copied all the files from drive c to it. Here's the problem.
Booting in this config it boots to drive c. In the Bios in the boot config
section there is no option to boot from the SATA drive. The only way to do
this is to unplug the 2 IDE drives. It will then put the SATA drive as
Primary and boot and attempt to boot from it. Yet after post and
recognizing the drive it will just go to black screen and nothing happens.
If I plug the ide drives back in it will then boot to C: Could someone
provide a play by play on how to get this thing booting from the SATA drive.
I dont mind reinstalling everything just need to get it going.

PS. When booting to windows from the IDE drives, Windows see's the SATA
drive as a removable device and puts a little icon down in the toolbar.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Mark.

Let's get the horse before the cart, where it belongs. You've told us a lot
about where you are and how you got here, but only this one line about where
you want to end up:

provide a play by play on how to get this thing booting from the SATA
drive.

One of the first thing WinXP Setup does is detect your hardware environment
and customize your copy of WinXP to work with that configuration. When you
copied your old Drive C: to your SATA drive's new partition, you copied the
instructions for how to boot from your IDE drive. But WinXP now needs to
know how to boot from a SATA drive, so you'll have to run WinXP Setup again
to let it detect your new hardware and reconfigure your copy of WinXP to fit
that.

provide a play by play on how to get this thing booting from the SATA
drive. I dont mind reinstalling everything just need to get it going.

Step 1: Find the floppy diskette that came with your SATA drive. If you
did not get a floppy, then find the SATA drivers on the CD-ROM that came
with it (or from the Western Digital website) and put the drivers onto a
floppy. Have that floppy at hand, then continue.

Step 2: Unplug (or disable in the BIOS) both IDE drives. Leave the SATA as
the only HD plugged in to the mobo.

Step 3: Set your BIOS to boot from CD-ROM.

Step 4: Insert your WinXP CD-ROM, reboot and follow the prompts, including
deleting all existing partitions on the SATA drive, then recreating at least
the System Partition and formatting it.

Step 5: Early in the Setup phase, you should see a message flash briefly
telling you to "Press F6 to install drivers for mass storage controllers",
or something similar. Press F6 and wait while Setup seems to not notice and
continues to copy hundreds of files from CD to HD. When it finally stops,
there should be instructions onscreen telling you how to use the floppy
diskette to install drivers for your SATA drive.

Step 6: After the SATA drivers are installed, the computer will be able to
boot from the SATA drive to finish Setup.

Then, of course, the usual caveats apply (firewall, antivirus, Windows
Update to be sure you have SP2 and later updates). When WinXP is up and
running on SATA, shut down and plug in your IDE drives and set the BIOS to
recognize them but continue to boot from SATA.

Then boot into WinXP and use Disk Management to organize drive letters on
both your new and old HDs to suit yourself. Reinstall your applications and
restore your data.

Since you've already used WD tools (I'm not familiar with those, but I
assume they've worked properly) to copy everything from C: to your new HD,
you can shorten the process a little by using the instructions for an
in-place upgrade, as described in KB article 315341. This will reinstall
WinXP itself but preserve your installed applications and data, assuming
that the WD tools properly copied the Registry from your old C:. To do the
in-place upgrade, follow all the steps above, but skip Step 4 (repartition
and reformat). And be sure to use 315341's Method 2; don't choose "R" for
Repair the first time it's offered; press Enter and choose "R" after
agreeing to the EULA.

Post back if you have questions.

RC

 

[_MARK_]

Thanks very much. I'll reinstall windows from scratch and not worry about
repairing it. After Ive installed Windows ill plug the ide drives back in.
Ill post results..

 

[NobodyMan]

Step 1: Find the floppy diskette that came with your SATA drive. If you
did not get a floppy, then find the SATA drivers on the CD-ROM that came
with it (or from the Western Digital website) and put the drivers onto a
floppy. Have that floppy at hand, then continue.

One minor nit: the floppy shouldn't come the the drive, it should
come with the motherboard.

 

[_MARK_]

Another glitch. The only two drives I have connected right now are a CD_Rom
plus the WD120 SATA drive. I have set it to boot from the CD-Rom, but when
I try to install windows it says checking hardware configuration and then
the screen goes black and nothing else happens. Any ideas. Should the
SATA drive be formatted. Any ideas...

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, NobodyMan.

Thanks for the correction.

My mobo has SATA RAID built in, but I don't yet have a SATA drive, so I was
kind of "playing by ear". ;^{

RC

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Mark.

No, the new drive need not be formatted before you begin; boot from the
WinXP CD-ROM and let it create at least one partition and format it. If a
partition already exists, you probably can use that, but I would delete that
partition and start clean.

The only two drives I have connected right now are a CD_Rom plus the WD120
SATA drive. I have set it to boot from the CD-Rom

So far, so good.

when I try to install windows it says checking hardware configuration and
then the screen goes black and nothing else happens.

For how long? Minutes? Hours? It may just be very busy checking a lot of
hardware components.

Since I don't have either ASUS or a SATA drive, I'm kind of flying blind
about your BIOS setup. Have you checked out the ASUS websites I mentioned
earlier? Did you get a manual with your motherboard or with your SATA
drive? Have you RTFM? :^}

Typically, you need to boot from the CD-ROM. Setup is smart enough to see
the HD, partition and format it, and copy lots of files to it in the
text-based phase of the installation, including installation of the boot
device drivers, if required. Then Setup restarts the computer, which should
boot from the HD (not the CD); this time it boots into the
partially-installed WinXP for the first time and completes the GUI phase of
Setup. That's why the drivers for SATA (or whatever will be the boot
device) has to be installed before this reboot is attempted.

RC

 

[_MARK_]

Unfortunately it never gets to that point. It boots from CD then
immediately checks hardware config, and at that point the screen goes black
and it stops..

 

[peterk]

Mark
I have an ASUS mobo and a SATA drive as well as an IDE drive and 2 DVD
burners.
You need to enter your BIOS and set the proper boot order.......in my Asus
BIOS I picked CD as 1st boot and SCSI drive as 2nd boot.You also need to
check the manual that came with your mobo to see if you need to plug the
SATA into a specific SATA connector for it to boot.You did not mention the
model of Mobo you have so I am hitting you with all the variances that ASUS
has on their various mobo.Then you need to check the manual for jumpers to
activate the SATA.usually preset at the factory but who knows??The Sata
drivers are on the mobo CD you need to copy them to a floppy.
Once you have all of that done.Then reboot with the XP CD in place and watch
for the message "push any key to boot off CD"......do so and the XP setup
program should begin.
If not please do post back here....but check everything I have mentioned and
let us know.
peterk

 

[peterk]

mark
are you using an OE version of XP???
peter

Unfortunately it never gets to that point. It boots from CD then
immediately checks hardware config, and at that point the screen goes
black and it stops..

 

[_MARK_]

Retail version. ?Funny thing is I can boot from CD and install XP as long
as the SATA drive is not installed..

 

[_MARK_]

Xp setup stops at checking hardware. will not go any farther. If I unplug
the SATA drive then it works

 

[_MARK_]

Figured it out. Had earlier formatted and copied drive c to it. Deleted
the partition and everything worked except one problem.. I have a little
icon down in the tray that says removable device. How do I get rid of
that...