I just got a new Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500gb drive for my Asrock K8 Combo-Z motherboard.It was using an IDE drive before I decided to upgrade.
So I put the drive in, remove the IDE drive, start the machine, go into the BIOS to find the new sata disk is set as the first boot option. So I change it so it boots from the dvd-rom drive to install XP. I exit the BIOS and begin installing XP. To install, I press Enter then F8 to agree to the license. Then I get a screen saying words to the effect of no hard disk was found, restart. So I then put the IDE drive in, set that as the master and boot into the XP installation. Device manager showed no other disk. So, I went to the Western Digital site, downloaded the Sata controller for it, then installed the software (which included the driver files) - device manager showed the disk, but not in my computer.So, in the Computer Management console I created a new partition, then it appeared in my computer and I could open the disk, copy files to and from the disk, so everything was ok with the disk. But, I obviously want to boot from the Sata and use that as my primary disk to get the full benefit of the technology.
So I copied the driver files to a floppy disk, rebooted,started XP installation, pressed F6 to install an extra driver, installed the 'Sata Controller' driver, got to the installation screen - still, the new disk wasn't shown. I restarted the computer, booted the IDE drive into XP - the sata disk was still shown perfectly ok. Still, I couldn't get the XP installation to recognise the new drive.
So, I used Acronis, cloned the IDE to the Sata, removed the IDE, booted the computer up, did a repair using fixmbr and fixboot - still, it wouldn't boot or be recognised in the XP installation.
I then booted the IDE drive again, got into XP,copied the xp installation files from the disk to the C: drive, then copied the extra driver files for the sata disk to work. I then began installing XP through windows, and selected the installation files to be on C:/Xpsetup and the installation path to be F:/windows.
Still, wouldn't work.
Does anyone know how to get a Caviar SE16 installed as the primary boot disk in Windows XP Home?
Many thanks!