Vista64 doesnt see WD bootdisk after adding second disk

[Duck Twacy]

Hi all.

Im trying to get a new PC to work based on:
Vista 64 bit Home Premium OEM
Asus P5Q de luxe mobo
Intel Core2 E8500
OCZ Reaper 2 * 2 Gb DDR2
Asus EN9600GT video
WD Velociraptor WD1500HFLS HD (SATA)
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1Tb HD (SATA)
Samsung CD/DVD writer (SATA)
CD/DVD player (forgot the brand) (SATA)
Logitech mouse

At first I installed and connected eveything in the new Antec case and tried to install Vista64 on the WD Velicorapter HD. But Vista kept saying there was no compatible device installed an didnt want to proceed. Then I tried loading new drivers for Asus chipset, but that didn't help. Then after reading 100s of postings on Vista installation problems I decided to disconnect the Samsung HD and DVD/CD reader/writer. With this minimal setup (1 DVD reader, 1 HD) the installation of Vista didn't gave any problems. Finshed in 20 minutes or so.

After installation I installed some software that came with the motherbord and videoard. All seemed well,

Now I decided to reconnect the Samung 1Tb HD and the DVD reader/writer but now Vista doesn't want to boot anymore. Going into the BIOS I see:
Main page:
SATA1 TSSTcorpDVD-ROM SH
SATA2 TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH
SATA3 SAMSUNG HS103UJ
SATA4 WD1500HLFS-01G

Boot page:
1st boot device : CDROMM-TSSTcorpD
2nd boot device : SATA PD-Samsung HD

I cannot select the WD harddisk here!!!!

Seems that after instalation of the SAMSUNG HD (and/or maybe the DVD reader/writer) the WD HS is not seen anymore (at boottime). How do I fix this????

Hope this doen't involve to much disconnecting of things anymore, because moving your hands around inside the case is very thight. Don't want to have more problems by statics or just broken connecters (from plugging/unpligging).

 

[badnewcastle]

I had a very similar problem... I had 2 HDD's similar to your setup on the P5Q-E (same platform as your setup). Anyways, I found out that the Intel chipset was booting off the the drive in the lowest SATA... I had it setup like this...

SATA1 DVDRW
SATA8 HDD did this because port 8 is a 90 degree port and for cable management it made sense.

The fix was to move it to SATA 2. For some reason it needed to be on a lower SATA port in order to make it work. Try it out see if it works.

 

[Duck Twacy]

Thanks I will try that (reconnect the SATA cables in other order) asap.

(have to leave home at the moment, but will report back tomorrow)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: badnewcastle
I had a very similar problem... I had 2 HDD's similar to your setup on the P5Q-E (same platform as your setup). Anyways, I found out that the Intel chipset was booting off the the drive in the lowest SATA... I had it setup like this...

SATA1 DVDRW
SATA8 HDD did this because port 8 is a 90 degree port and for cable management it made sense.

The fix was to move it to SATA 2. For some reason it needed to be on a lower SATA port in order to make it work. Try it out see if it works.

Intel southbridges do not support eight SATA ports. Only four (ICHx) or six (ICHxR). So those additional ports must have been supplied by an additional controller chipset. Thus why you couldn't boot off of them.

 

[Duck Twacy]

Well I swapped SATA1 and SATA4 cables, now having the WD disk (with Vista on it) on SATA1 and the system boots again.

Only the system doen't seem to see the SAMSUNG F1 disk yet. It does see both the DVD drives.

Must I put the Samdung F1 disk on SATA2, or is it just that need to do some initialising/formatting of the disk.

Sometimes I long back to the good old PC/MS DOS years, primitive, but at least you had some clue about what you where doing