[ashaw]

Hello everyone,

Thank you in advance to taking your time to read my question. I need your infinate wisdom...

I am trying to install Win XP Pro on a single 300gb Maxtor SATA hd on an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe MOBO w/2gb ram...

My BIOS is set to boot CD first, then "boot other devices". In the start up screen it sees the drive. Windows starts to install, gets to the "Would you like to set-up Windows XP now - press enter" screen - I press enter and it tells me there are no hard drives loaded in the system press F3 to exit then it reboots.

Again, thanks and have a great day!

Tony

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hmm... all i can reccommend is make sure you connected everything right.

[stettybet0]

hmm... all i can reccommend is make sure you connected everything right.

[audioboy]

Hi ashaw-
to set up a sata drive, you will need the floppy with the sata drivers (should have come with the mobo), and a floppy drive to install them. if you dont have the drivers, go to the asus site and download them. (also check what your southbridge chipset is, this will determine which actual driver to install)

when you start the PC with the XP disk in, it will start copying files, and will prompt you to "press F6 to install SCSI/RAID drivers." do that, then press "S" when prompted. (have the floppy disk in the drive) select the correct driver, and you will be all set. it will see the drive, ask to format, etc.

what is happening is that sata technology is newer than winXP, so windows considers it a SCSI device. motherboard manufacturers are quickly catching up on making sata a boot option (instead of just "boot other device"), and hopefully the next version of windows will be more sata install friendly as well.

hope that helps. let us know if you have any problems, questions, etc.

[addict]

hey, im new to this, but i have the same problem, i just bought parts to build a comp. got everything good but cant get system to recognize my sata drive, i ony have one and am trying to put xp on it. sometimes it will detect it on the bio's menu but wen it loads up windows to instal, it wont recognize it as a hard drive and i have to exit.

my specs:

gigabyte PX duo pro edition mobo
toshiba SATA hard drive

Please help!

[comptard]

when i used my asus cd driver it didnt work but then i copyed my drivers from the hard drive cd ( maxtor) then booted cd ran partitioning and formatting. then reboot with windows xp in drive and install. it should say press f6 to install a scsi or raid driver. Press f6. when its done loading its files it will ask u to press "s" to to find a hard drive to use/ software ( floppy disc with drivers from hdd disc). Press "s" key. and insert the floppy and press enter. it should begin to read the floppy and load its contents. after that its a matter of waiting for windows to finish and reboot.

[ashaw]

Thanx all! Everything's working great!

HAVE A GREAT DAY AND BEST REGARDS!

Ashaw

[ZTom]

Hi!

I've got the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe too, and a 80GB Samsung SATA drive. I want to install WinXP on this drive. So, I do following steps:
1. put the install CD into CDROM, set BIOS to boot from CD
2. when the WinXP starts the setup, I press F6
3. then, I put the floppy with the SATA drivers in the drive
4. the windows setup reads the floppy, and tells me, that "file system not recognized"

What does it mean? Why? I've tried the drivers from original mobo cd, and I've tested the latest drivers from the net, but both failed...

Do you have an idea? Thanx.

PS: The file sys on the floppy must be working, becouse the setup could find and read the oemsetup.txt file on the disk (when I put an other floppy in the drive, the setup could not find anything)

[ZTom]

Huh that was a fast troubleshooting...
The problem was, that the floppy was not formatted. I know, I know ... But this was a problem, becouse in WindowsXP and even in DOS I could read and write the floppy disk, so I tought it was formatted (and it had to be, otherwise how could I do anything with it?! ) I labeled the floppy to "SiL3112A", don't know, wheter it helped or not.

Windows is a crasy thing...