SSD SATA drive detected in BIOS, but not in partition manager

[erind]

Hi,

I'm trying to do a fresh install of any OS ( Win 7, Linux ) on a SSD SATA drive and the PC ( Gateway GT5220 ) has only this drive inside, but the OS partition manager does not see the drive, whereas the BIOS detects it.
I've had the same problem before, but with a regular SATA hard drive and somehow I managed to install Ubuntu on it using alternate install CD. But this time I'm really stuck.
The other thing is that I'm able to do a full format/install of OS when I insert this drive in a laptop, but not in the desktop, which tells me that this is some sort of missing SATA drivers. I've found the same issue from my searches so far on the web regarding support for SATA drives, but not a real solution for my case. Also BIOS does not have any 'ahci' option to disable.

Is there any other way I can get this to work ?

Thanks.

 

[violetblueskies]

you're probably right about the drivers.
if it detects in your bios then its just a matter of getting the os to recognize the device as well.
do you have a floppy drive on the pc?
if so you can get the drivers for your southbridge chipset which controls the sata/ide and stuff like that, put it on a floppy, and use the f6 option at the beginning of the windows install.
i looked it up and found you have the nvidia mcp51 chipset (nforce 430).
these are the specs on your motherboard that i could find:

Part Number: 4006136RNVIDIA GeForce 6150 AM2 uBTX 1394 Motherboard

Following are the specifications for the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 AM2 uBTX motherboard.


FeatureSpecification
Chipset

• North bridge: C51PVG
• South bridge: MCP51

CPU

• Front side bus speed: 2000 MT/S
• Socket type: AM2

Memory Support Four DDR2 DIMM sockets support 533/667/800 MHz modules
4 GB maximum system memory
VGA Chipset C51PVG
LAN Chipset AC131
Audio Chipset ALC883 8-channel audio
USB 2.0 Support 8 total connections

• Two internal connectors supporting 2 connections each
• Four USB ports on the rear panel

IEEE 1394A Chipset VT6308
Super I/O Chipset IT8716
Add-In Card Slots

• One PCI Express ×16
• One PCI Express ×1
• Two PCI conventional

Internal Connectors

• One Primary IDE ATA 133 connector
• One secondary IDE ATA 133 connector
• Four serial ATA (SATA) connectors
• One floppy disk drive connector
• One ATX 12V main power connector (24-pin)
• One AUDIO IN FOR CD connector
• One CPU FAN connector (3-pin)
• One CAS FAN connector (3-pin)
• One SPDIFO connector (not used by Gateway®)
• One front audio connector

Rear Panel I/O Ports

• One port
• One PS/2 mouse port
• One PS/2 keyboard port
• One parallel port
• One serial port
• One VGA monitor port
• Four USB 2.0 ports
• One network (LAN) port
• Six audio jacks:
  • Center/subwoofer jack
  • Rear speaker jack
  • Side speaker jack
  • Line in jack
  • Line out/front speakers jack
  • Microphone jack

you might want to take a look at this:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp32_8.26_11.09.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_28653.html

F6 floppy install
-----------------
* Create the F6 install disk by copying all the files from either 'sataraid' -or-
'legacy' folder onto a floppy diskette.
* during installation you must hit F6 key when prompted by OS installer.
* insert driver diskette into the floppy drive and follow the OS prompts
When OS reads the floppy it will show the following:
NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER (required)
NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller (required)
Both of these MUST be installed if RAID is enabled on the installation port. After
hitting ENTER to select one fo these, you must then hit "S=Specify Additional
Device" and then install the other.
If RAID is not enabled on installation drive port, then only "NVIDIA nForce Storage
Controller" is required.

if the floppy is not an option then you need to integrate the drivers onto the windows install disc.
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/51140-integration-of-nvidias-nforce-raid-and-ahci-drivers/

 

[erind]

Thanks a lot violetblueskies for your detailed information. Yes that's the PC I'm talking about.

There is no floppy drive in the PC, I downloaded the drivers for mcp51 from the nvidia site and I tried several times to get the OS to see the drive, but still no luck.
Anyway, from what I'm gathering it seems like it'll be hard to get the SSD correctly detected at the OS level, so I'm thinking of a clone program, which works at a very low level, something like Spinrite which sees the drive, so I can clone the current OS from the old SATA drive to the new SSD one. I tried clonezilla, Acronis, Norton, but none of them can see the drive, only Spinrite can. So if there is such a low level program, I'd gladly try it.

Thanks again.