Asus A8V and Sata users: drve not showing up

[plagiarist]

I have an Asus a8v.

I have a Samsung SATA 160GB.

It doesn't recognize the drive as existing.

I have the DVD-rom set as the master over the secondary IDE channel.

There are no jumpers on the HDD.

Everything else works fine.

Dammit, I wanted to install an OS and be up and running by now.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

You need to put the CD ROM that you have from the mobo put it into your computer. Get the SATA drivers.

When you are installing WinXP press F6 at the very beginning and select the correct driver. (Promise or VIA)

 

[PaiN]

What ports do you have the drive attached too, Promise or Via? Are the ports set in bios to "IDE mode" I believe they default to RAID in which case one drive wont be recognized.

 

[plagiarist]

I checked the bios setting and set it to IDE mode, didn't work. I'll use the mobo disk now, I was thinking I'd use that after installing XP (I used to constantly reformat and reinstall a windows 98 pc, and I'd use the mobo disk after the install).

Thanks guys.

 

[PaiN]

Is the drive seen by the controller's bios, when booting?

 

[plagiarist]

it wasn't seen by the bios, I'm gonna go back up and use the mobo disk in a second, assuming it can be booted to.

 

[plagiarist]

yeah, I tried booting again. Doesn't detect the SATA drive, and apparently I can't boot to the Mobo CD.

 

[mechBgon]

The mobo has two separate SATA controllers. As PaiN already asked, which controller is your drive hosted by, the VIA ones marked SATA1 and SATA2, or the Promise ones marked PRI_SATA and SEC_SATA?

Search the mobo's CD-ROM for files called Makedisk.exe and how many are there? Two, or three? These are the utilities that produce driver floppies. If there are two different ones for the Promise controller, then run the one that doesn't have "RAID" in its folder name, plug your drive onto the PRI_SATA plug on the mobo, and try Windows Setup, hitting the F6 key when you see the prompt. When it asks for the drivers, give it your floppy and see if it figures it out.

 

[plagiarist]

I'm plugged into SATA1, because I was thinking that the Promise ones were RAID..

Time to make some floppy disks and switcheroo the cables I guess :-D

 

[DJediMaster]

Yeah you must install the sata drivers during the winXP install by hitting F6 I have the exact same board.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: DJediMaster
Yeah you must install the sata drivers during the winXP install by hitting F6 I have the exact same board.

Out of curiosity, on yours, are you using the VIA or the Promise controller for your boot drive?

 

[XRdirtHead]

I had a hell of a time setting up my a8v for the first time. I wish they could have made the setup more noob friendly......

 

[DJediMaster]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: DJediMaster
Yeah you must install the sata drivers during the winXP install by hitting F6 I have the exact same board.

Out of curiosity, on yours, are you using the VIA or the Promise controller for your boot drive?

I believe I am using the VIA controller configured for regular IDE operation (they are situated towards the bottom of the motherboard).

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: DJediMaster

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: DJediMaster
Yeah you must install the sata drivers during the winXP install by hitting F6 I have the exact same board.

Out of curiosity, on yours, are you using the VIA or the Promise controller for your boot drive?

I believe I am using the VIA controller configured for regular IDE operation (they are situated towards the bottom of the motherboard).

Hmm, the ones closer to the bottom are the Promise, according to the board layout in the manual. What I'm wondering is if it's even possible to get the actual VIA controller to run a single disk.

[ RANT ]
This is why I'm not enthusiastic about SATA. Sure there are some boards where it's seamless. And there are some boards where it's simply like SCSI, press F6 and floppy diskette and there you go. But when we've got two controllers, three Makedisk utilities, a labyrinth of BIOS settings... and all for what? Thin cables that look cute? Don't tell me "performance," because the fastest SATAn drive out currently could just as easily have been built as a PATA drive, since actually it is a PATA drive, with a PATA-to-SATA bridge chip stuck onto it.
[ / RANT ]

 

[plagiarist]

I find the BIOS settings confusing, I resent the long delay on each boot while it detects the sata device, and I resent that it doesn't automatically let me set the device as a master on a channel (or as anything any channel at all for that matter) after the stupid detection thing.

I'm going to move it BACK down to the lowest SATA connection, and try again. Sigh, etc. (Seeing as apparently the upper one won't work for a single dsisk? I moved it up on what I was told earlier )

Edit: Er, I misremembered. I moved it down already, never moved it up from down.

File on the floppy crashes the windows installer, going to remake it on another disk and see if it works..

 

[plagiarist]

HaHA, IT WORKS NOW!

XP is formatting the drive as I speak.

And I was thinking I'd have to go DL an xp copy that comes with SP2. (although for convenience' sake, I probably should, to save dl time after installing on new PCs of mine)

(stop looking at me funny, I use my legit copy of XP, SP1, that I got two years ago, but if it doesn't work then I'm just gonna take steps to make it work even if it means I have to download another piece of software. I paid for XP, I will use XP regardless of the steps it takes. When XP 64 comes, that means buying a new XP. Which I'm fine with)

 

[DJediMaster]

Hmm, the ones closer to the bottom are the Promise, according to the board layout in the manual. What I'm wondering is if it's even possible to get the actual VIA controller to run a single disk.

[ RANT ]
This is why I'm not enthusiastic about SATA. Sure there are some boards where it's seamless. And there are some boards where it's simply like SCSI, press F6 and floppy diskette and there you go. But when we've got two controllers, three Makedisk utilities, a labyrinth of BIOS settings... and all for what? Thin cables that look cute? Don't tell me "performance," because the fastest SATAn drive out currently could just as easily have been built as a PATA drive, since actually it is a PATA drive, with a PATA-to-SATA bridge chip stuck onto it.
[ / RANT ]

My bad they must be the promise then. Originally I tried the top controllers (VIA ) but to no avail. Then tried switching over to the other set and everything worked fine. I do agree that its not as straightforward as it could be...

 

[XRdirtHead]

I thought the bios were really confusing. I wasn't sure what ones I should disable or keep enabled...

 

[Balin le Savage]

Had the same problem, reading this topic solved it for me. Thanks.

 

[imported_fallen]

I have the same MB, and a 36 gig Raptor, and am having the same problem, but with another twist just to make my life more interesting:

This is a replacement MB & CPU for one that fried. I already have a working copy of WinXP installed on the Raptor. Do I have to completely reinstall winXP just to get this thing to see my HD?