help I need to install a single sata hard drive with an asus a8v deluxe

[Maniac618]

Hi,

I have seen a thread about a problem i have and wish to ask you about it....

Here is the thread i am talking about:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...gle+AND+sata+AND+drive

I have an asus av8 deluxe motherboard and a 200gb western digital caviar sata 8mb cache 7200rpm hard drive.

When in the bios setup it does not show up under the boot sequence and also when attempting to install xp pro i am told there is no hard drive, however as the PC starts up the drive name is on screen for about a second so something somewhere knows it exists.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The technician who came to my house didn't know what was going on.

What we did was copy 'makedisk.exe' from the av8 drivers cd under the sata378 or something folder.

Was this the right thing to do? We then used it and windows accepted the drive and the technician asked to partition it into 2, which worked, then it said "computer restarting" from there the technician turned off the pc and left.

Did he do the right thing? I don't have RAID, just a single sata drive? Help.

What are arrays do i need to set them in the bios before going ahead anymore with windows?

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease help a stranger in trouble,

Maniac618

P.S. Thanks in advance if you can help more, the thread was confusing so i need help.

 

[mechBgon]

The motherboard has two separate SATA controllers. For a single drive:

1. Start by ensuring that you're ready to prevent an instant worm infection. You should have some form of firewall waiting in the wings before you start, whether it's a hardware router, or SP2 for WinXP all pre-downloaded and ready to install, or ZoneAlarm free version, or the router plus one of the other two.
2. Plug the drive's SATA cable into a jack that's connected to the Promise SATA controller (these are the lower pair that sit side by side, marked SATA_RAID1 and SATA_RAID2).
3. switch the Promise controller to IDE mode in the motherboard's BIOS. This is found in the motherboard's BIOS menus under Advanced \ Onboard Devices Configuration where you would set Operating Mode to IDE Mode, see page 4-24 of the manual for a screenshot of that. Since you're not using the VIA SATA RAID controller, you can disable the OnChip SATA Boot ROM there while you're in there.
4. Run the Makedisk.exe that generates the IDE-mode Promise driver floppy (not the RAID mode, you're not using RAID). There are two Makedisks for the FastTrack 378, you want the one that doesn't have "RAID" in its name.
5. Set the board to boot first from CD-ROM, second from the hard drive. You'll find this in the motherboard's BIOS menus under Boot \ Boot Device Priority. A tip: if you have any additional standard IDE hard drives in the system, leave them unplugged until you've got Windows installed, so the SATA drive doesn't end up with a weird drive letter like F:
6. Start Windows Setup from CD again, and when it says to press F6 if you have third-party drivers yadda yadda, press the F6 key so it knows to ask for the drivers a little later in the process.

Hope that helps

 

[Maniac618]

I have the floppy disk we used here and it appears he used the 378sata version of makedisk.exe

the floppy now contains:

folders for various OS including xp, the makedisk.exe is now gone from the floppy but was there to use it in the first place when windows asked for it. (i think the technician must have used f6 etc).

So does it seem like he did the right thing? I think i still need to set the bios to IDE mode though. Should I really do that even though i have a sata and not an ide or am i a n00b getting confused?

Thanks for the help so far!

Edit:

Here's the readme from the floppy we made and used.... will this clear things up?

**********************************************
* *
* Promise SATA378 Driver Diskette *
* *
**********************************************


====================
Contents on the disk
====================
README TXT This readme file
ULSATA Microsoft Windows miniport disk label file
TXTSETUP OEM Microsoft Windows miniport text mode setup file

WIN2003 <DIR>
ULSATA SYS Microsoft Windows2003 miniport driver
PTIPBM DLL Promise Windows2003 set Pbm dynamic link library
ULSATA INF Microsoft Windows miniport setup file

WINXP <DIR>
ULSATA SYS Microsoft WindowsXP miniport driver
PTIPBM DLL Promise WindowsXP set Pbm dynamic link library
ULSATA INF Microsoft Windows miniport setup file

WIN2000 <DIR>
ULSATA SYS Microsoft Windows2000 miniport driver
PTIPBM DLL Promise Windows2000 Set Pbm dynamic link library
ULSATA INF Microsoft Windows miniport setup file

WIN98-ME <DIR>
ULSATA MPD Microsoft Windows98-ME miniport driver
ULSATA INF Microsoft Windows miniport setup file
PTISTP DLL Advanced INF file format support file
PU66VSD VXD Promise power management driver
SMARTVSD VXD Promise S.M.A.R.T. driver

NT4 <DIR>
ULSATA SYS Microsoft WindowsNT miniport driver file
PTIPBM EXE Promise WindowsNT Set Pbm execution file
ULSATA INF Microsoft Windows miniport setup file

================
Software Version
================
Microsoft WindowsNT miniport driver 1.00.0.27
Microsoft Windows2000 miniport driver 1.00.0.27
Microsoft Windows98-ME miniport driver 1.00.0.27
Microsoft WindowsXP miniport driver 1.00.0.27
Microsoft Windows2003 miniport driver 1.00.0.27

 

[Maniac618]

should i just go ahead with the xp installation and do the following once in windows....?


1. Right-click the My Computer icon and select Manage from the popup menu.

2. Click Device Manager in the menu tree.

3. Click the ?+? in front of SCSI and RAID controllers. WinXP Promise SATA150 TX Series Controller should appear.

????

 

[mechBgon]

Yeah, switch the Promise controller to IDE mode even though your drive is SATA. Both SATA and "standard" ATA are actually IDE (stands for integrated device electronics). Once that's done, just hit the F6 key at the prompt, plunk the floppy diskette in there when Windows Setup asks for it, and follow the directions on the screen.

BTW, if you were later to add a "regular" ATA drive, the motherboard will probably start trying to use it as the primary hard drive, and will attempt to boot from it rather than from the SATA drive. You can go into Boot > Boot Device Priority and set it back to the SATA drive again and it should resume working as it did before.

 

[Maniac618]

is it ok to go into the bios and change to IDE mode after windows has already asked for the disk and i've put it in and used it), or is there a 2nd time the disk is required and that's what you are talking about?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Maniac618
is it ok to go into the bios and change to IDE mode after windows has already asked for the disk and i've put it in and used it), or is there a 2nd time the disk is required and that's what you are talking about?

Are you saying Windows succeeded in setting up on it as-is? If so, don't let me mess with success here Otherwise, you can do whatever the heck you feel like, including changing the controller's operating mode and starting Windows Setup again.

 

[Maniac618]

windows accepted it and let me partician the drive. so does that mean it worked ? if in the bios setup the setting isnt on IDE will performance be crapper than it should be with my drive.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Maniac618
windows accepted it and let me partician the drive. so does that mean it worked ? if in the bios setup the setting isnt on IDE will performance be crapper than it should be with my drive.

If Windows accepted it and let you partition the drive, then I think you're home free (haha, famous last words ). The IDE setting changes the Promise controller from a RAID controller to a normal one and I doubt it will perform differently either way, I just wasn't expecting it to work with a single drive unless it was set to the IDE mode. But whatever works

Make sure you keep that network cable unplugged until you've got a firewall in place, and make sure to install your motherboard's chipset drivers before you install your video-card drivers. Have fun

 

[Maniac618]

thanks.

 

[jyp]

After patitioning and everyting windows try to install and I get an error messasge saing 'Setup cannot copy file: UlSata.sys'
I'm not sure where it's trying to copy from. I have the file in the floppy disk which is currently inserted in the drive.
All I can do is stop the install. What's wrong here?
I guess I'm like the only one with this issue.

Thanks,

jyp