HDD New PC Problem

[Sherberi]

Hubby bought my bits for me to build a new pc (it was a brave move, I know!) everything was going to be new, apart from the graphics card, cd-rom, floppy, and going to use the existing HDD as well as a new one

Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-K8VT900
CPU AMD 64 2800+
1GB Ram
New HDD is a Maxtor SATA 80GB 6Y080M0 model

OS would be WinXP Pro


Originally I was going to use my old IDE HDD (cant remember model sorry but its approx 4-5 years old) as a primary master IDE HDD booting up to that, with the OS on and using the new HDD Maxtor as primary SATA Master, just as general storage and where all my games would go (I online game alot so wanted the newer HDD for that).

However, on installation, it wouldnt recognise the IDE HDD at all, Ive changed the IDE ribbon cable with my old one. I even changed the cable with the cdrom cable (it recognised the cdrom from the beginning, IDE secondary master). I even tried swapping the power plug from cdrom to hdd, and then pointing the cdrom to the IDE1 slot instead of IDE2. At all times it saw the cdrom (even put it as primary ide master when I swapped slots on the m/board). BIOS wouldnt autodetect it either.

So I figured I'd give that up as a bad job, so unplugged the IDE ribbon cable and power from the old HDD and from the m/board but leaving IDE1 enabled on the BIOS - bu left the old HDD in place just incase I either figure it out, and because Im too lazy to remove it!

So then I moved onto my new HDD, the Maxtor SATA one. I made sure I had the SATA cable in SATA0 and used the normal power plug (although there did appear to be an option for an SATA type power plug, but couldnt find any instructions for that, so left it unplugged).

On booting up, it recognises the cd-rom as IDE, and then changes screen and recognises SCSI Primary Master Maxtor HDD. It also gives me an option to press tab to enter RAID BIOS - however when I do that the only thing I can do is press Esc to exit - it wont respond to any other keys at all.

I boot up with my WinXP disk.

Initially I let it start to install, but it came up with it couldnt find a HDD to install it on.

So I ran install WinXP again, and chose F6 option for raid/sata drivers (cant remember wording exactly sorry). It continues through installation but then asks me to insert floppy for drivers. Unfortunately the HDD came with no disks etc.

Im now stuck - Ive checked the normal BIOS settings as best I can, but cant find an SATA/Raid option anywhere, so made the boot up options as:
1) Floppy
2) CDRom
3) SCSI
It didnt change anything.

I would appreciate any advice or guidance on this please. My hubby wants his pc back LOL oh and yes I think he also wants me to stop yelling at the baseunit.

[Sherberi]

As an update - I have checked the CDrom that came with the motherboard and found the following:

Folder called Drivers contains 3 files (SY-File type), named:
e100bnt
e1000nt4
IANSNT4n

Folder called BootDrv contains (Application files):
265ATA
265XP
265RAID
265RXP
276ATA
276RAID
8237
GIGARAID
IAARAID
MENU
SCSI
SII
SIIR
Tother with a few other files

If any of those are what I need, I have no idea which one.

[antgross@pacbell.net]

Depending on whose controller you are using on the MOBO for your sata drive, you need to get their drivers. For example, if you are plugged into the VIA section of the mobo get VIA drivers from their website.

Check other postings by me and you will find more info on how to install SATA.

You don't want to be using RAID if you only have one SATA drive. You can setup non-raid and use your other IDE as slave. However, you will have to get the drivers if you want to install XP on the SATA drive and use that as your boot drive.

You will also have to tweak your bios a little after installing XP on your Sata drive because windows might try to boot off the slave ide device. You will have to go into bios and make sure the boot order and hard disk order start with the controller that has your sata HD.

hope that helps.

One more thing: It may simplify your task if you just leave your IDE drive unplugged until you finish successfully installing the OS on the sata drive.

I couldn't find your mobo on google. Are you sure that you listed the correct model number?