I have just got a SATA drive but nothing!

[Extra 300 Driver]

I have just got myself a SATA drive, 250gb. The motherboard NF4K8AC-RS can take the drive but noting is showing, apart from an extra DVD drive.

Someone suggested that I need to update the BIOS, what do you think?

I am lost with all this.

Thanks all,

nick

[BliarOut]

Is the SATA connector enabled correctly in the BIOS?

[Extra 300 Driver]

BliarOut said:

Is the SATA connector enabled correctly in the BIOS?

Think so, will check now

[Extra 300 Driver]

Yep done that, still nothing.

Arse

[Extra 300 Driver]

I have checked the BIOS and the drive is ther, but when I boot windows it only sees the extra DVD drive.

So it must be a Windoes XP issue then?

[BliarOut]

Extra 300 Driver said:

I have checked the BIOS and the drive is ther, but when I boot windows it only sees the extra DVD drive. So it must be a Windoes XP issue then?

Sounds like it... I would check your MoBo drivers are the latest.

[HarryW]

Agree afaik XP does not recognise SATA (certainly didn't on mine during install) you need to install the drivers seperately.

[omohat]

HarryW said:

Agree afaik XP does not recognise SATA (certainly didn't on mine during install) you need to install the drivers seperately.

What he said. XP does not have built in drivers for the SATA controller. Until you install those drivers, it won't see the SATA drive. Your mobo should have come with drivers.

[ErnestM]

Your motherboard uses the nvidia chipset so driver installation is probably a MUST. You can go into device manager and see if you have any unknown devices in SCSI mass storage controllers...

ErnestM

[rsvmilly]

It seems to be an up to date mobo and nForce4 has SATA support out of the box IIRC. My Asus nForce4 board certainly has.

Firstly, as previously said, make sure your sata interface is enabled - probably in the integrated peripherals page of your BIOS menu.

Secondly, make sure the SATA is plugged into a 'normal' sata slot and not a raid slot. That caught me out!

[Extra 300 Driver]

I am still having no luck on this. I installed some nForce drivers and they caused my PC to crash during boot up. I have used system restore to get it back.

It sees the drive in the BIOS but not in XP, this is really getting to me now, I have been on it for hours!!!!

[rsvmilly]

Have you initialised and formatted the disk?

If not you need to right click on 'My Computer' and select MANAGE. Select 'Disk Management'. Can you see your sata disk there? If so then first 'initialise' the disk and then set up partitions and format it.

[MarkoTVR]

Is your original drive IDE, and have you bought the SATA as an extra drive? If so, have you tried disconnecting your IDE drive and doing an installation of XP (pressing F6 to load the SATA drivers at the start of the install) just on the SATA drive?

If that works, it would hint that you have to choose one or other interface, not both.

[Extra 300 Driver]

rsvmilly said:

Have you initialised and formatted the disk? If not you need to right click on 'My Computer' and select MANAGE. Select 'Disk Management'. Can you see your sata disk there? If so then first 'initialise' the disk and then set up partitions and format it.

You are a bloody STAR!!!!!

Thanks

[rsvmilly]

Extra 300 Driver said:

rsvmilly said: Have you initialised and formatted the disk? If not you need to right click on 'My Computer' and select MANAGE. Select 'Disk Management'. Can you see your sata disk there? If so then first 'initialise' the disk and then set up partitions and format it. You are a bloody STAR!!!!! Thanks

Happy to help!