My SATA HDD didn't come with driver!

[Scott_Beattie]

To my knowledge you need drivers to install XP onto a new SATA hard drive, usually on a floppy disc, correct?

Well, I recieved my Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 80GB 6V080E0 SATA-II today, but it came with no drivers at all; just the drive in an anti-static bag. The motherboard (A8N-E) also doesn't have any drivers.

Does anyone know where I can get the drivers from?

Thanks for any help,

-Scott

[Panama Red]

Asus must be having server problems cuz I haven't been able to get on all day. Check your mobo manual to determine if your SATA is native to the mobo (no drivers needed) or an extra chip like Silicone Image (needs drivers). If the drivers are needed, they should be on the cd that came with the mobo. You'll need to follow the instructions for extracting them and making a bootable floppy (or cd). If you no longer have the cd, wait for the Asus site to come back up and download them from their download section. Just look up you mobo and find the downloads for that board.

[Scott_Beattie]

Originally Posted by Panama Red Asus must be having server problems cuz I haven't been able to get on all day. Check your mobo manual to determine if your SATA is native to the mobo (no drivers needed) or an extra chip like Silicone Image (needs drivers). If the drivers are needed, they should be on the cd that came with the mobo. You'll need to follow the instructions for extracting them and making a bootable floppy (or cd). If you no longer have the cd, wait for the Asus site to come back up and download them from their download section. Just look up you mobo and find the downloads for that board.

The motherboard only came with a support CD, no drivers.

Thanks for your reply, I will look up to see if it is native.

[Scott_Beattie]

I have just been reading up about this, people have installed XP without the SATA drivers but the computer runs extremely slow and laggy. Does anyone know how/where I can get the drivers from?

Thanks.

[FireByyrd]

What motherboard is it?

See if you can get the drivers here, ASUS is back up.

http://support.asus.com/default.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

[Kiwi]

No one else has made this particular suggestion yet, so I will. "What makes you think that your particular motherboard came with a SATA interface?" Not all currently produced system boards include this. Many models, in fact, still do not offer SATA of any kind yet.

Originally Posted by Scott_Beattie To my knowledge you need drivers to install XP onto a new SATA hard drive, usually on a floppy disc, correct?

Not quite. You get them on a CD. When you get a motherboard that includes SATA hardware, any needed drivers are on that CD. If you don't think you have drivers from the MB maker, you are wrong. Windows isn't going to work at all correctly without a lot of special drivers.

The Device Manager would be about half full of yellow exclamation marks otherwise. The MB manual will include coverage of the SATA software, including a program that creates the needed floppy from the CD. This is a case of "RTFM", big time. It will all be explained there. And if you threw away everything you got with the MB for some amazing reason, Asus will have a pdf version available for download, along with all kinds of matching drivers and software to download. It's all there waiting for those who haven't done the RTFM routine yet.

[Scott_Beattie]

Originally Posted by Kiwi Not quite. You get them on a CD. When you get a motherboard that includes SATA hardware, any needed drivers are on that CD. If you don't think you have drivers from the MB maker, you are wrong. Windows isn't going to work at all correctly without a lot of special drivers. The Device Manager would be about half full of yellow exclamation marks otherwise. The MB manual will include coverage of the SATA software, including a program that creates the needed floppy from the CD. This is a case of "RTFM", big time. It will all be explained there. And if you threw away everything you got with the MB for some amazing reason, Asus will have a pdf version available for download, along with all kinds of matching drivers and software to download. It's all there waiting for those who haven't done the RTFM routine yet.

Yes, I have just read about this. There is one problem though; this laptop I am using doesn't have a floppy drive, and it is the only avaliable computer in my house. So how am I supposed to create the bootable floppy?

PS I am not stupid, I am 100% sure my motherboard supports SATA. If you read m first post you can see that my mobo is the Asus A8N-E.

[Panama Red]

OK, here's a way to back into the solution. Connect the SATA hdd, power up and see if it is shown in the bios. If it is, you're good to go. If not, put your mobo CD in the laptop and check for a Make Disk program that will extract the SATA drivers.

[Scott_Beattie]

Yes it is recognised in the BIOS, and yes the makedisk program is there when I put the mobo CD into this laptop. The problem is to create the bootable floppy to put the drivers on I need a floppy drive right? This laptop does NOT have a floppy drive.

[Panama Red]

If it's recognized in the bios, set the CD drive as the first boot device, insert the XP disk and see if you can install it. If the SATA is native, you don't need to worry about the drivers. The drivers may only be needed to install RAID.

[Scott_Beattie]

Alright, thanks for help!

One more question; what happens if it isn't native? Will XP install,or will the installation cancel if the drivers are need?

Oh and I won't be using RAID because I am using a single hard drive.

[Panama Red]

XP won't "see" the hard drive and it will tell ya it can't install.

[Scott_Beattie]

Rightio, thanks for your help. I will be trying it now.

[Scott_Beattie]

Well that's just great isn't it, the computer won't recognise the Windows Media Centre CD. I keep getting the "boot faliure. please insert system disk and press enter to continue". Yes, I have put the CD drive to boot first.

[Kiwi]

So far, I haven't seen a great need to jump to SATA, despite having had two different nVidia NF2-based MB's that included it (DFI and Gigabyte).

No insult intended, however, if you will eventually be able to spend some time in various forums here, you might be surprised how little many PC builders turn out to know about what they've purchased. Meanwhile, there are sites such as Bart's, on which the procedure for creating bootable CD's is detailed. With one of those that has the required driver added, you should be ready to use the new drive.

That's if your A8N-E isn't equipped with a no-driver version of SATA.

[Scott_Beattie]

I knew SATA was going to be different, and that I would have to install the drive seperately when installing Windows; I just didn't know it was going to be this much bother. I might send it back and use my old PATA drive.

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by Scott_Beattie Well that's just great isn't it, the computer won't recognise the Windows Media Centre CD. I keep getting the "boot faliure. please insert system disk and press enter to continue". Yes, I have put the CD drive to boot first.

Is your CD drive properly recognized in the bios? Do you have a choice of CD drives to use? Make sure you're putting the disk in correct drive if you have more than one.

[Scott_Beattie]

I only have one, and it IS recognised in the BIOS.

[Panama Red]

Do you get a message on boot up to "Press any key to boot from CD"? If so, hit the space bar or any other key.

[Scott_Beattie]

Yes I did at first, then after I press any key the screen went blank for a second and came up with the "boot failure. please insert system boot disk". Even though I have the Windows Media Centre CD in. The CD drive seems fine, it read the disk OK.

[Panama Red]

I'd try another CD drive.

[Scott_Beattie]

I don't have one.

Could it be anything else causing this? The light on the floppy drive stays on constantly....

[Panama Red]

You have the floppy cable 180 degrees off. Make sure the stripped edge is in the correct orientation on the mobo. If it is, flip the other end around. I don't think that has anything to do with this. Check the XP disk for any scratches. Make sure any virus protection that shows in the bios is disabled.

[Scott_Beattie]

I fixed it. For some reason IDE was set to disabled.

It is installing XP now.

Thanks for your help!

[Panama Red]

You're welcome! Enjoy the new machine.