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Windows XP/SATA experts...


Whooter

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Here's my situation, I currently have two 80GB SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration. I'm wanting to replace them with a single 250GB SATA drive.

 

When I remove the two old drives and install the new one, during bootup my RAID panel recognizes the single drive on Serial_Ch0 and no drive on Serial_Ch1, as expected.

 

When I try to install XP, the drive isn't recognized. When I try to hit F6 during the setup to load SCSI/RAID drivers, nothing happens, there's no response from the system, and it continues to try and load the files it needs to setup WinXP.

 

Question: Do I need to re-hookup my two old drives, and delete the RAID array before I try and install this new drive? Is there something else I'm doing wrong?

 

Argh. :bh

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What motherboard are you using, Joel? On my Abit I have to go into the IDE devices in the BIOS and there are 4 options on how to setup the SATA controller.

 

You can try just deleting the RAID from the controller when you boot, but if you can't set it to a non-RAID config in that panel than you'll most likely run into the same problem as before.

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I was actually thinking more about the SATA controller (though disabling RAID now that you're not using it is also good, of course). WinXP install (even SP2) doesn't recognize SATA drives. You gotta disable SATA to install. The drives should still work, just not at full speed (until you install the drivers in XP and re-enable SATA). That was just my experience with one specific motherboard, though (can't remember which, just that it was Asus or Abit).

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It's an MSI K8TM with an AMI BIOS. There's a VIA SATA/RAID control panel that comes up during boot, that I'm pretty sure I had to install back when I first got the original drives. There's nothing in the AMI BIOS that mentions SATA control.

 

I went ahead and tried deleting the array first. No dice. I did finally get WinXP setup to respond to the F6. Now I have a new problem. It only wants a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers from. I don't have a floppy drive, and never have had one in this system. I have the SATA drivers on a CD, and I thought that was the way they came originally. *sigh*

 

I'm this close to just going and buying a 250GB IDE drive and selling the SATA drive, at this point... blah.

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I went ahead and tried deleting the array first. No dice. I did finally get WinXP setup to respond to the F6. Now I have a new problem. It only wants a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers from. I don't have a floppy drive, and never have had one in this system. I have the SATA drivers on a CD, and I thought that was the way they came originally. *sigh*

It won't let you skip that step and run the drives in some sort of page mode?

 

But like Covak mentioned, I can't imagine you being the ony one to have this problem with a board as common as MSI or a BIOS like AMI.

 

Good luck.

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There's nothing in the AMI BIOS that mentions SATA control.

 

Have you checked in the IDE settings in the BIOS to see if the SATA RAID settings are there like my Abit?

 

I did finally get WinXP setup to respond to the F6. Now I have a new problem. It only wants a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers from. I don't have a floppy drive, and never have had one in this system. I have the SATA drivers on a CD, and I thought that was the way they came originally. *sigh*

 

Come on man, get creative :) Do you have a floppy drive in another PC that you can use?

 

I'm this close to just going and buying a 250GB IDE drive and selling the SATA drive, at this point... blah.

 

How much do you want for the SATA drive? :)

 

WinXP install (even SP2) doesn't recognize SATA drives. You gotta disable SATA to install.

 

I never heard that before? I know XP doesn't have the drivers on the install disk, but I never had to disable SATA on the PCs I've built with it, just needed to hit F6 during during the file copy to install the drivers :umm

 

When I installed my SATA drive, all i did was plug it in and windows xp picked it up no problem on boot up for the install, but I was using a nVidia chipset and not a VIA one.

 

Are you saying you did a fresh install on a SATA drive or you added a SATA drive to a PC with XP on it?

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The more I sat and stewed about it, the more started to come back to me. I *do* remember having the SATA drivers on a floppy, at one time. I dug through my pile of computer junk and found a floppy drive and a cable, and I'm at my office (according to the calendar on my desk, for the first time since Nov 14th, 2005) downloading the drivers to a blank floppy.

 

Heading home now to try this again... I'll let you know, Scott, if I have a SATA drive to sell. It was like $110 at Newegg.

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Looks like it's in your IDE controller like my Abit....

 

http://www.ikor-design.com/ikor-design/product_info.php?products_id=6279

 

On-Board IDE

? An IDE controller on the VT8237 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO Bus Master and Ultra DMA 66/100/133 operation modes. It can connect 4 Ultra ATA drives.

? Serial ATA/150 controller integrated in VT8237

- Up to 150MB/s transfer speed

- Can connect up to 2 Serial ATA drives

- Support RAID 0 RAID 1

 

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I never heard that before? I know XP doesn't have the drivers on the install disk, but I never had to disable SATA on the PCs I've built with it, just needed to hit F6 during during the file copy to install the drivers :umm

 

Well, I just meant if you don't have the floppy. Heck, I didn't even have a floppy drive handy :/

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Well, after running all over hither and yon, and digging though piles of old computer crap, I appear to be in business. Windows XP is installed, and I'm formating my partitions in anticipation of restoring all my software. Whee! :)

 

Thanks for the help, guys. Go help Rainmaykr. He has issues... ;)

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