[peterrex]

Just one more thing. I overlooked the third choice of driver. It is the Silicon Image Sil3112 SATA RAID controller for Windows XP/Server 2003. Ciao, for now.

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OMG the keyboard...never would have thought of that. GERRYF, you are a GENIUS! I appreciate your jumping in with that, it was starting to drive me crazy.
from what I saw, you want to use the silicon image driver- you dont have an intel chipset, so you dont want to use those drivers. and the abit forum specifically mentioned the silicon image drivers.
OK, get windows loaded up, and lets see what your machine can do!

[audioboy]

OMG the keyboard...never would have thought of that. GERRYF, you are a GENIUS! I appreciate your jumping in with that, it was starting to drive me crazy.
from what I saw, you want to use the silicon image driver- you dont have an intel chipset, so you dont want to use those drivers. and the abit forum specifically mentioned the silicon image drivers.
OK, get windows loaded up, and lets see what your machine can do!

[peterrex]

The mystery continues...Did I get too eager here? I saw it was willing to take the SATA drivers. I went and bought a 500watt PSU as an investment in the future and a vote of confidence, so to speak. It is described as being as being AMD compatible. I installed it and reattached the power plugs to the only items inside requireing power: The DVD, floppy drive and SATA drive, and of course the mobo which now has two power adpters rather than one to be plugged in to. Everything went well. It boots, asks for F6, loads then asks for SCSI type drivers to press S, I press S & it asks for disk in floppy, I insert, it reads, I choose the Silicon Image driver, it loads, continues loading Windows, comes to the choice again of Windows=Enter, Restore=R or (I think) Escape=cancel. I hit E to continue to load Windows and I get the message that it cannot see any drives. The first time this happened I powered down and rechecked all plugs, the SATA drive power plug was not tight. I tightened it and repeated the process to load Windows. I got the same message not seeing any drives. What the heck? (Hey I generally use stronger language, but there may be children present who are learning something) So, what's next now? Thanks again and again.

[Doby]

Thank you Gerry you never cease to amaze



Peterrex keep us posted on how it goes and do me a favor and let me know what bios you are running so I know what bios works with the thunderbird incase I run into it again.

Btw don't upgrade the bios because a different one may not work with that cpu.

Rick

[peterrex]

SIGH...
Here's the info from the POST:

Phoenix Award Bios V6.00PG 1984-2003 Phoenix Tech

On the next page is:
VIA TECH INC. VIA VT8237 Serial ATA RAID BIOS Setting Utiloity v2.21
Serial CH 0 Master WDC WD1200JD-OOFXBO

What does it all mean? It takes me repeatedly past the request for SATA drivers from drive A, loads them and asks if there are any others (HD drivers of some kind? I never got any with this drive which was new, though OEM)and when I say load Windows brings me again to the message that it cannot see any drives. Is this to do with "mass storage drives"? Is the "Change Drive Message" in BIOS supposed to be set a particular way? I've looked through the BIOS so many times I'm not sure I see it clearly anymore. Thanks some more.

[audioboy]

the web page for your AN7 mobo says it uses the silicon image SATA driver...yet the Boot message you saw shows it as a VIA SATA utility. hmmm...
go to this link, download the latest SATA driver. probably want the one that says floppy, it should download the tool that will extract itself onto a floppy drive.
im gonna do a search on that via utility now.

[audioboy]

heres the official VIA SATA drivers. Doby or gerrf, could you look at this and confirm before peterrex uses this? A second opinion would be useful right now...

http://www.viaarena....t.aspx?PageID=2

[Doby]

You can also try the other drivers on the floppy it won't hurt nothing I already could not get the silicon/via drivers to work and tried the intel ones and to my supprise they worked but I don't remember witch one so try both.

Rick

Edited by Doby, 04 May 2005 - 07:26 PM.

[Doby]

VIAThis is the correct driver Audioboy referred to

Edited by Doby, 04 May 2005 - 07:37 PM.

[Doby]

Hummm that link didn't work the way I thought it would so use the link I posted then click on Xp then click ide,raid & sata then VT8327 intergrated serial ata raid controller. This would be the correct driver but read this on how to install for windows installation.

Rick

[peterrex]

OK, I got the zip file from the Via Arena. As far as I can tell what I want is inside the folder called VIARaid. Inside the one called DrvDisk it looks like the references are to the AMD64 mobo/CPU which I don't have. So I am (right or wrong) deducing that inside the VIARaid folder I want DRIVER folder and there are three files there, all different kinds and all named VIAMRAID. There are a lot of other files in this ZIP folder as well, I am assuming that unless someone says something I can ignore them all.
From the instructions I understand I essentially go through the motions I was before for installing the OS except that now I use the newly made floppy with three above mentioned files to load (one at a time?) as the SATA RAID drivers during the OS installation.
I have the zip available on another computer with a floppy dirive so I can easily get what I need from it if necessary.
I have the floppy ready now. Tell me, am I on the right track as far as you all know and I should try the installation again? Thanks as before.

[peterrex]

OK Boys and Girls, this looks like the final chapter in this saga. Because I was confused by the direction to copy everything inside a folder I took that literally. The instruction on the VIA page states to copy everything inside the DrvDisk folder onto a floppy. Well inside that folder are two more folders. I tried to do this and not have any folders on my floppy. Nothing worked. A number of other efforts didn't work and finally after reading th instructions for twentieth time I copied everything inside the DrvDisk folder to the floppy, folders and all. I tried this and it didn't work. Then I remembered something. I turned off the computer and went to the bathroom. I came back and did the exact same thing again. For the first time I am now actually past the user agreement and it is formatting the drive. If for some bizarre reason I still am thwarted my next message should contain a bottle of champagne! And countless thanks to everyone who has helped me here. i will most certainly return for other questions as they occur. You guys make dealing with the internet the kind of universal helping community it is at its best. Mazeltov to one and all.

[audioboy]

Then I remembered something. I turned off the computer and went to the bathroom. I came back and did the exact same thing again.

LOL, computers make me do that sometimes too...

sounds like you are set! remember to leave the HDD option out of the boot order in BIOS, so when you add in your other IDE drive it doesnt try to boot to that. you are set that way currently, so no changes need to be made.
glad we got this sucker going finally. we all learned a few new tricks on this one!

[peterrex]

Yeah, I sort of felt like I'd died and gone back to college, so to speak. I'll be in touch with you guys regarding my other computer, perhaps in a few days. For the time being I'm looking forward to setting this one up for the tasks I need it to perform. Thank you, thank you, thank you one and all. Ciao, for now...

[Doby]

Yea i glad we got it fixed to now its time to enjoy, keep us posted on how its runnin

Rick