SATA drives - how can I use it?

[nicecupoftea]

Hi,

bought a SATA drive recently (motherboard supports it no problem, has the sockets, mentioned in the manual, etc.)

I'm rebuilding the machine based around the new drive - have disconnected all the other drives but the machine's not finding the drive at all. SATA is enabled in the BIOS.

What do I need to do?

Is there a driver that I need to load? If so how do I load it if all other drives are disconnected. Hopefully XP setup has USB drivers so that I can install it from a USB pen.

Just strikes me as odd that the board has all the sockets and support and is switched on in the BIOS but no drivers

Edit: gigabyte website lists drivers for RAID SATA use - only using a single drive though so no RAID support required...

Edited by nicecupoftea on Tuesday 3rd April 20:44

[tank slapper]

Have a look in the BIOS and make sure the SATA controller is not set to RAID mode. Is the drive detected at all at boot up?

[police state]

What board is it?
What bios is it?
What drive is it?

You will (possibly)need your motherboard Install CD before you go near installing XP on it; once over that hurdle, you will need the driver for the controller (assuming its onboard the mboard), once you get the driver, press F8 (near the very beginning of the install) while you are starting the windows install. Eventually xp install will ask for the 3rd party driver, it's here you tell it which one, just copy the driver(s) to a floppy, and point the dialog at the floppy drive.

[nicecupoftea]

Not set to RAID in the BIOS.

It's a Gigabyte GA-7VM400MF-P, Award BIOS, WD 250GB drive.

I have managed to get it working by forcing the drive to SATA I speed.

However, XP setup is saying there's only 130GB unpartitioned available now

[tank slapper]

nicecupoftea said:

Not set to RAID in the BIOS.

It's a Gigabyte GA-7VM400MF-P, Award BIOS, WD 250GB drive.

I have managed to get it working by forcing the drive to SATA I speed.

However, XP setup is saying there's only 130GB unpartitioned available now

That is a limitation with the Windows. It was fixed after service pack 1 I think. Install the operating system with the largest partition you can, and get it up to date with service packs and patches and you can then modify the partition size with Partition Magic or its equivalent.

As for the drive speed, you are stuck with SATA I speed I'm afraid as that is the fastest that the KT400 chipset southbridge will support. In reality you are unlikely to notice the difference.

[police state]

nicecupoftea said:

Not set to RAID in the BIOS.

It's a Gigabyte GA-7VM400MF-P, Award BIOS, WD 250GB drive.

I have managed to get it working by forcing the drive to SATA I speed.

However, XP setup is saying there's only 130GB unpartitioned available now

Have you got to the point where it asked for a 3rd party driver?, if so, and its the correct one, then just let it partition the 130gb as your boot drive. You can always create additonal partitions in XP's Disk Manager.

make sense?

[nicecupoftea]

Thanks guys. Pretty unbelievable that until recently MS's flagship OS couldn't access more than 140BG of diskspace

In that case I don't suppose getting the RAID drivers from Gigabyte is going to make any difference to the amount of the drive I can access...

[tank slapper]

nicecupoftea said:

Thanks guys. Pretty unbelievable that until recently MS's flagship OS couldn't access more than 140BG of diskspace

In that case I don't suppose getting the RAID drivers from Gigabyte is going to make any difference to the amount of the drive I can access...

Once you install the latest service pack you should be able to see the whole drive without any problem. In disk manager it will appear as unallocated space, and you can either create a second partition which will appear as another drive when you look in 'My Computer' or use a third party tool to expand the original one.

The RAID driver is only relavent if you have more than one hard drive and are creating a mirrored or striped disk.

[nicecupoftea]

Thanks for that

Any recommendations for a partition magic style program for free?

[police state]

nicecupoftea said:

Thanks guys. Pretty unbelievable that until recently MS's flagship OS couldn't access more than 140BG of diskspace

In that case I don't suppose getting the RAID drivers from Gigabyte is going to make any difference to the amount of the drive I can access...

It will see more than 140GB once you get your boot partition up and running, and update to SP2, as TankSlapper says. I'm staring at a few terrabytes right now. If i were you i wouldn't make the boot (C drive 140gb. You shouldn't need that kind of volume for the boot drive 40Gb should be more than adequate for holding your windows and program install. Make the other volume (100 GB your temp drives) then wack another drive(s) in for your precious data. That way, when you lose the Boot drive (and you will...) you still have your precious data drives instact; and obviously if you RAID them, they should be more reliable.

[Rebuilda]

PM me with your postal address and I will send you a CD I use which has the required tools on it.
I fix PC's and Laptops for a living. I have two different disks and use them countless times every week.

[tank slapper]

nicecupoftea said:

Thanks for that

Any recommendations for a partition magic style program for free?

The one I usually use is QParted, which is a linux tool and is on various live CDs like Knoppix. GParted which is similar has its own live CD - link