PROBLEM SOLVED! Adding SATA Drive won't allow me to boot into Windows

[Anonemous]

So I added a Seagate SATA II drive to my rig which contains EIDE drives. Winxp is installed on an IDE drive. The onboard RAID/SATA detects the drive but after that it just hangs the system. I have tried low level formatting it using the RAID/SATA utility but it still occurs.

I can boot into winxp by unplugging the sata drive so I know that's the key component. I have tried switching the SATA drive to primary or slave by moving the connector to the different SATA connectors on the mobo but it still hangs.

Here are the rig components if that will help:

Asus A7n8x Deluxe (with up to date bios)
WD1200JB <--- OS drive
Seagate 400gb SATA II drive.

Is there something simple that I am missing?? I have added multiple IDE drives and never had a problem with them.


edit: had to change in the bios to SCSI->SATA instead of SATA->SCSI and take out any additional IDE drives and hot plug in the SATA drive.

 

[conlan]

What is the boot order in BIOS?

Is there a jumper installed in the back of the SATA Hdd?

Have you installed the SATA driver?

Have you enabled the SATA jumper? (it's slightly below and to the right of your BIOS battery)

 

[Anonemous]

Originally posted by: conlan
What is the boot order in BIOS?

Is there a jumper installed in the back of the SATA Hdd?

Have you installed the SATA driver?

Have you enabled the SATA jumper? (it's slightly below and to the right of your BIOS battery)

Boot Order - floppy->Hdd0 (EIDE)-> cdrom
Yes there is a jumper to limit it to 1.5 Gbits.
Yes, it was part of the nforce 2 drivers.
Yes the SATA jumper was enabled.

It just hangs at the SCSI/SATA screen.

edit: hangs right before the Verifying DMI pool...

 

[myocardia]

Alot of motherboards won't allow you to boot to an IDE drive, if there's an SATA drive in the system.

 

[Anonemous]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Alot of motherboards won't allow you to boot to an IDE drive, if there's an SATA drive in the system.

So you can't mix and match IDE and SATA drives???

 

[farmercal]

Look, I have that board and there is a setting in the BIOS that specifically deals with the SATA/SCSI drives. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what that setting does (and the manual doesn't even mention it), but I do know that I had to change that setting to get my system to boot using the SCSI drives. If you computer is set to boot from SATA and there is no OS on the SATA drive it will not boot. I'm not saying that is your problem just look at the setting and see if it might be the cause. Good Luck.

 

[natto fire]

Originally posted by: farmercal
Look, I have that board and there is a setting in the BIOS that specifically deals with the SATA/SCSI drives. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what that setting does (and the manual doesn't even mention it), but I do know that I had to change that setting to get my system to boot using the SCSI drives. If you computer is set to boot from SATA and there is no OS on the SATA drive it will not boot. I'm not saying that is your problem just look at the setting and see if it might be the cause. Good Luck.

The setting you are talking about changes the priority from SCSI to SATA, it is not mentioned in the manual because it was added in a later BIOS release. Also note that he wants to boot off the PATA, not the SATA drive.

OP: Yes, you can mix and match PATA and SATA (keep in mind both drives are IDE), at least on that motherboard, as I did it for years. It sounds like you covered the basics. The "IDE" driver in the nForce drivers are NOT for the SATA controller, only nForce 3 and greater has native SATA. (It is a Sil 3112, on the A7N8X that provides SATA) Is the drive in question a 7200.10?

I had a 320 GB Seagate that did the exact same thing you are describing, thinking it was the motherboard I tried it on my P4M800, with the same result. It would hang while attempting to recognize the drive. I now have a Gigabyte board with an NF4 chipset, again with the same result, tried both jumper configurations. So I am ready to say it is the drive in my case, but I am not sure how I can RMA it if I can't get the code from Seagate tools (kind of hard to boot to that while hanging at POST )

As far as BIOS settings, make sure that you have "Boot other device" disabled.

 

[Anonemous]

Originally posted by: Captain Howdy

Originally posted by: farmercal
Look, I have that board and there is a setting in the BIOS that specifically deals with the SATA/SCSI drives. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what that setting does (and the manual doesn't even mention it), but I do know that I had to change that setting to get my system to boot using the SCSI drives. If you computer is set to boot from SATA and there is no OS on the SATA drive it will not boot. I'm not saying that is your problem just look at the setting and see if it might be the cause. Good Luck.

The setting you are talking about changes the priority from SCSI to SATA, it is not mentioned in the manual because it was added in a later BIOS release. Also note that he wants to boot off the PATA, not the SATA drive.

OP: Yes, you can mix and match PATA and SATA (keep in mind both drives are IDE), at least on that motherboard, as I did it for years. It sounds like you covered the basics. The "IDE" driver in the nForce drivers are NOT for the SATA controller, only nForce 3 and greater has native SATA. (It is a Sil 3112, on the A7N8X that provides SATA) Is the drive in question a 7200.10?

I had a 320 GB Seagate that did the exact same thing you are describing, thinking it was the motherboard I tried it on my P4M800, with the same result. It would hang while attempting to recognize the drive. I now have a Gigabyte board with an NF4 chipset, again with the same result, tried both jumper configurations. So I am ready to say it is the drive in my case, but I am not sure how I can RMA it if I can't get the code from Seagate tools (kind of hard to boot to that while hanging at POST )

As far as BIOS settings, make sure that you have "Boot other device" disabled.

Yes i have the Sil 3112 drivers and installed them. The Sata drive in question is the 7200.10 and is recognized by device manager if I hot plug in the drive while in Windows but won't show up in My Computer (even after a low level format). I'll try those bios settings to see if that will work. IIRC there is no enable SATA option in the bios just the SCSI/SATA raid.

Thanks for everyone's help.

edit: low level format through the onboard SCSI/SATA RAID utitlity.

 

[Anonemous]

GOT IT TO WORK! even though it's really buggy.

In Order to boot into windows, I had to switch the SATA to slave, change the bios setting to SCSI-> SATA not SATA->SCSI, remove any additional ide drive besides the OS.
Now if i put in the other IDE drives it hangs the system at the OS menu screen (where it lets you choose OS').

To get around this problem, I had to hot plug in the drive after it had booted in windows.

Thanks guys for all your help. I think I should just mirror the main drive onto the new SATA drive and make that the primary.