SATA HDD in PC not recognized

Impotence

I think there are some files missing from your floppy disk...

The drivers used by the Windows setup (running from the cd) and windows are different, so if the second set is missing then you won't be able to boot up from your HDD!

Quite a few people have had this problem before, but i still cannot remember what the extensions of the files you need are (if you find out before anyone posts it, could you let us all know what they are!)

-Impy

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thomas234

I'm not sure that drivers are the issue here... Windows has all the drivers it needs, and it recognises the hard drive. It's the motherboard which doesn't acknowledge it's presence whilst POSTing, and therefore doesn't look to boot from it. This leaves me with a message "boot disk not found. Enter disk and press enter to continue".

I've currently got the O/S on a 4gb HDD and the SATA one as a secondary one which stores files.

donkey42

i know you need to have a 48 bit HDD controller & at least SP1 or greater on XP to recognize more than the 137Gb limit, but, because your using a PCI SATA card this isn't an issue, because the SATA card will have it's own BIOS version

are you using any PATA devices, please list all PATA & SATA devices in use

BTW: i think slipstreaming the SATA driver into your Windoze CD may solve your problems

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thomas234

The two hard drives in use are both Maxtor, one is 4gb and t'other a 200gb.

The O/S is Windows Server 2003 with SP2.

I'm still struggling to understand what Windows has to do with this though... as far as I'm aware it's the motherboad which won't recognise the HDD, not Windows.

donkey42

thats why i saidyou are correct

BTW: i thought i answer this thread, strange

i didn't ask what OS you are using, i askedpresumably the 4Gb is PATA & the 200Gb is SATA & are there any other SATA or PATA devices ?

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thomas234

Ok sorry donkey my bad! Didn't read your post carefully.

Yes you are correct in assuming that the 4gb is PATA and 200gb is SATA.

When the PC is booting, the second part of the POST shows that a SATA RAID PCI card is recognised. Not sure if this makes any difference!

Thanks, Thomas

donkey42

because i've never used SATA card, i'm still on PATA, but, in theory i think the HDD should be recognized unless the SATA card or HDD or both have gone to the big computer shop in the sky

assuming the SATA card is working, have you checked & reconnected the HDD connection to both the power & data cables ?

Edit: np, just don't let it happen again, unless you like having the back of your legs slapped

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thomas234

Yes I would agree, except they are both recognised and work under Windows...!

I suppose it's not that important as long as I have the 4gb boot drive.

And btw, I prefer PATA to SATA, the cables seem loose in SATA!

Impotence

Credits to Anti-Trend for suggesting this to me, use a blob of hot glue to hold the SATA cables in place (if you have a glue gun) or get sata cables with retention clips!

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donkey42

AT is da man, but that sound like an plan / good idea

BTW: i need a glue gun before i go SATA

Edit: me too, PATA is easier to understand too

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thomas234

Why do you think that?? With PATA hard drives there were the fiddly little jumpers, and sometimes problems when you tried to have 2 devices on one cable if they weren't set correctly. So far I've not come across this with SATA drives.

On another note, I was reading a bit about SATA recently, and it said that the average user wouldn't be able to tell the difference, as benchmarks are the only things which use the whole bandwidth available.

donkey42

yes, unless you use CS (Cable Select) as i do, with CS you just set every device to CS and the device is master or slave depending on it's location on the IDE cable this eliminates the HDD being in charge of who is master & slave, and to move a device from master to slave position on the cable you don't move any jumpers, you simply move the device to the end of the IDE cable to be master & to the middle connector to be slave, this also eliminates wear & tear on the jumper, because a standard jumper dies after being moved about 50 times on averagethat doesn't say much, because, the "average user" can just about power a system on, and doesn't have a clue what a PSU or router is for

BTW: with some things, i don't have a clue

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Impotence

I remember my first SATA hard disk... and i remember being very impressed at its speed! (and that was in the dark ages, when i used windows!).

An example of what 'the average user' would notice if they used both and then compared them would be things like media players, when they scan your music for the first time to read all the meta info to get track names etc

I think your being too kind to the [L]users (bofh reference, bofh)

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donkey42

dum, dum di dum, dum di dum dum dum dumall right, all right, that was bloody funny, but i'd better shut up now, because, i can be thick with some stuff

BTW: i like stuff like that

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