I assembled a machine with Ga 73pvm-s2h Mobo, one SATA II hdd (samsung 320 gb) and one CD ROM (IDE socket).
I installed fresh XP32 passing through standard BIOS procedures and partition and formating.
BIOS has recognized CD ROM (as IDE channel master) and SATA hdd (as master in SATA II - 1 channel). After first XP installing I appointed in BIOS as first booting device the SATA HDD.
The computer is normally running but there is a problem with XP booting stage. The XP can be booted only if in the CD ROM device there is a CD (the curious thing is that CD could be with any content - just a CD). During the booting stage there is a notification that the only recognized devices are CD ROM and Floppy - SATA HDD is not shown, which probably is signal that SATA HDD is not recognzed. No matter of that after 5-8 seconds of CD ROM selection the XP loading moves further (for sure XP is loaded from the only SATA HDD).
If there is not a CD in the CD ROM device then the computer goes into stage “Prepare for setup…” and remains endless in this position (since there is not HDD to initiate booting process).
I suppose that HDD should change SATA mode to IDE mode and then XP will recognize the HDD and boot process will follow. The problem is that I can’t find in the MOBO description any answer how to make that(In principle I’m not interesting in RAID and ANCI modes). I have installed all drivers for NVIDIA GeForce/nForce 630i.
As mentioned, after this strange way of XP loading/activation the machine is running normally.
Any suggestions are appreciated and any additional info can be provided.
Thanks