WINXP cannot find hard drives

[David M]

I received this message when I attempted to install XP

"Setup did not find any hard drives installed in your computer."

"Make sure any hard drive disk drives are powered and properly connected to your computer and that any disk related hardware configuration is correct This may involve running a manufacturer supplied diagnostic or setup program."

My bios is recognizing my hard drives because when I boot, I get the following message:

ID MODE SIZE TRACKING MAP STATUS
1 2+0 74038M 9001/255/63 Functional


My connectors are tight, the drive is spinning and I double checked the SATA cable placement on the mobo.

I then went into Western Digitals website and did a search for "WD360 setup program"...no luck and "WD360


Does anyone kno where on Western Digitals website where there might be a software download for setting up the drives so that WINXP is able to recognize them?

My drives are WD360 in a RAID-0 config conected by SATA cables, mobo ASUS SK8N,

Thanks.

[Floppyman]

When the setup launches and asks you to press F6? to install third party drivers, you might have to install your RAID drivers first for your array to be recognized. HTH

[David M]

Ahh...thanks Floppyman...I will go search for those the drivers on WD's website.

[David M]

FloppyMan

I downloaded some drivers in Western Digitals site but they may have been the wrong drivers. here is a link to those drivers. http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools The title is: SIIG Serial ATA Controller Windows Drivers and the file name I downloaded is Windlg10.exe

If you have the time, would you please have a look and see if they are correct or incorrect?..if not, what might be the correct drivers?

I downloaded and installed those drivers. Windows still does not recognize my drives.

Thanks

[Floppyman]

You'll probably want the drivers for the RAID on your motherboard (it is onboard right)? If so, first check whether you didn't receive a floppy disk with your Asus board that has these drivers on them. If not, check out the support on the Asus website for your particular motherboard. They should also have the RAID drivers there for you to download. Let me know what you can come up with and HTH.

[bailey]

its on the cd that came with the board

[David M]

This is getting worse.

I downloaded software from WD, placed it on a floppy and booted from the floppy. The software is called Data Lifeguard ver 11.0 for DOS

http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools

...and is supposed to set up my drives. I loaded the software and everything seemed fine until I rebooted my computer. I got a message that said the NTDLR is missing. So I looked up what NTDLR in the Microsoft knowledge base. Here is what it means: http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

I am truly puzzled now. My drives are brand new and have not even been formatted. They are supposedly in FAT32? I dont understand because I have been trying to install WinXP the whole time. Now I cant even boot the computer. I know to ask for NTFS when prompted...which has not happened yet.

Do I really need to go out now and find an old copy of Me or 98 and go through Microsofts fix?

As you sugested, I am going to go ahead and see whats in the CD for the mobo...I received no CD for the hard drives. Are there usually CD's with drivers that come with hard drives?

Thanks Floppyman and bailey

[Confused]

No. Look on the CD that came with the mobo. I have a Asus and on the CD was a folder called drivers. Under that was a folder called SATA. Under that was a folder for XP. I put everything except the GUI and readme files on floppy.

Booted up with the XP CD and when prompted, I hit F6 for 3rd party drivers.
Chas

[David M]

I just realized.....I am supposed to insert an old win98 disk to take care of the NTDLR problem....but then, how do I boot from the CD if the NTDLR problem prevents the computer from booting?

I just realized this when I went to run the CD that came with the Mobo


Thanks

[David M]

...sorry duplicate message

[David M]

I tried "booting" from the ASUS CD rom with the drivers....my other computer shows the drivers are in there. Problem is the NTLDR message comes up and prevents me from going any further.

[Confused]

I didn't have to boot with a old WIN98 CD. I copied the drivers off the CD that came with the mobo.
Chas
Think about it. What would people do if all they had was the mobo and its CD, a SATA drive and a XP?

Uou don't need a WIN98 CD.

[David M]

Anyone want a couple two day old WD360 hard drives so I can start from scratch? Would flashing the BIOS...pulling the battery for a few seconds put me back to square one? Right now I just want the abiltiy to boot the computer back.


I have no idea if its true if the hard drives got formatted to a FAT-32 format...no way to tell. So they are "as is"...no guarantees. I bought them OEM so the warranty is probably 30 days.

It no longer seems worth the hassle to have two SATA drives working at RAID-0 to get the extra speed.

Just kidding...I am NOT giving up!

[Floppyman]

Hi David,

Here's what you need to do:

1. Follow Confused's instructions and copy the necessary files onto a floppy disk.

2. Next insert your winXP into your cdrom and see if the system will boot off of it (like it has done before) and start the setup*. When it prompts you to press F6?, press that key. Then insert the floppy you just put the drivers on and install them. This should allow your array (your drives) to be recognized. Do not worry about formatting or partitioning before you have gottent his far-- you can do all that during the windows XP setup.

*IF you aren't able to boot off the cd anymore, look in the bios and change your boot order to boot from cd first.

3. This should be all you need to do. There's really no need to clear the CMOS, use WD's utilities, or play with the win98 cd, etc. to get this work.

Let us know how it goes, and HTH

[David M]

Floppyman and Confused,
I just tried what Confused recommends. The computer boots through where it recognizes the hard drives then the message: "NTLDR is missing" "Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart the computer" appears on the screen.

The boot process does not get far enough to read either what is in the floppy drive or whats in the CD drive. The boot process stops after that message appears.

Would it make sense to wipe the BIOS clean back to the factory settings and to wipe clean whatever may be on the hard drive so I can get back to ground zero where I turned on the computer for the first time? If so, how do I do this?

Given the computer will not read a floppy, hard drive or a CD drive, I am running out of options.

Thanks guys for your help.

[Floppyman]

Hi Dave,

No need to worry....or "wipe" anything for that matter

Go back into the bios. Try to find the bootorder option. Once you there, make sure cdrom is set first. If it's not set it to first, save your changes and exit. Then follow my steps above. If the cderom already is set first on the list, it's possible that it is not getting enough time to boot off the cd. So to fix that, remove everything from the bootorder menu, except floppy and cdrom (Make sure you remember what order it was in before though), making sure the cdrom is first. Save your changes and exit. Now try booting off the cdrom again, and then following my steps above. Let us know what you can figure out and HTH.

[David M]

FloppyMan,

HTH?...not familiar with what that means

Okay, I changed the boot order from FT 378 Ary 1....Ist Floppy Drive....PM-Sony DVD RW DRV

over to ---> Sony Drive....Floppy.....FT ARY (disabled)

This time I heard the CD with XP spin up...I was asked to hit any key to start the XP install...so I did...and then the NTLDR message came up which told me to ctrl alt del.....

The install screen for XP did not come up

[Floppyman]

When you changed your bootorder settings, is the cdrom and floppy the only thing that are listed right now? Is everything else disabled for now? It should be able to boot off the cd. Also what are other hardware are you using? Let us know and hope this helps (HTH).

[David M]

FloppyMan,
Yes, the CDrom and the floppy are the only listed devices. I disbled FT ARY ( I dont know what that is.) I also have a Audigy 2 sound card which I have in the mobo but not have installed the drivers for. I also have a Radeon 9800XT video card for which I have not installed the drivers for either.

The drives are WD360 10k rpm

I dont have any other cd or dvd drives other than the Sony nor do I have a second floppy

The board is a Asus SK8N with a FX51 CPU. The case is a Thermaltake Xaser 3 with a 420 watt PSU The heat sink is the stock heatsink that came with the CPU

The RAM is Corsair XMS 3200 that is registered, 2 sticks of 512k

I am thinking that one of the downloads I did from the WD website formatted my drive in FAT 32..and that is the reason the NTLDR message comes up?

[David M]

Would pulling the battery..flashing the system return the bios back to ground zero before I first turned on the computer. I am also considering returning the hard drives or selling them as used and buying something more conventional like a single SATA drive.

Has anyone here had success at getting a FX51 processor on an ASUS Sk8N mobo running dual raptor in RAID-0 running XP to work? I saw it done in a computer magazine..so apparently it can be done.

If so..how did you do it?

Is 64 bit processing full of bugs? Should I have waited another year for the bugs to get worked out? This just seems bizarre...It should not be this hard.

Microsoft says I should need to load a copy of 98 or ME?...how strange. How do I load a copy when the error message prevents my CD drive from running? Now I have to buy Win98 to get a brand new XP computer running?
http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

This cant be right. There must be a way of fixing this.

I am tempted to take it into my local mom and pop computer store and offer 300 bucks if they can fix it and admit defeat!....LOL

[Floppyman]

If you disconnect the harddrives, then will it boot off the cd? I'm just trying to narrow the problem down here, as it should be able to boot from the cd. Also, what exactly did you download and run from the WD site?

You could try setting your Bios back to the defaults to see if that helps. If we can't get the RAID working, you can also always hook the drives up as separate drives. I'm hoping to get it working with the RAID though.

[David M]

I disconnected the dard drive power and data connectors. I then went to boot and the message I got said "Drives not detected" (of course) and another interesting message that said "The BIOS is not installed" Which is another bizarre screen message because I can hold down the delete key and get into the BIOS How can the BIOS not be installed if I can get into it?

I was not able to to boot windows from the CD

On the positive side...the NTLDR message did not come up.

The software I loaded was software which I was directed to find that I believe loads the drivers that control the RAID in the ASUS site

I loaded: SIIG Serial ATA Controller Windows Driver from this webpage and loaded it from a floppy.

http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools I also downloaded and installed

I also downloaded and installed Lifeguard v11.0 for DOS...which apparently is a utility for the instalation of WD hard drives. Lifeguard is at the top of the same webpage as above.

Thanks Floppyman...I really do appreciate your time and effort.

[Floppyman]

David,

Are you sure your cdrom is hooked up and detected correctly?

If you're sure then let's try this. Have you tried setting the bios back to the default settings yet? After you have done this, try booting off the cd again. If that still doesn't work, try hooking up just one of the Raptors to a normal SATA connector (not RAID). Then see whether you can't the cdrom to boot off the cd. Let me know how it goes and HTH.

If you still can't boot off the cd after this, there is another thing we can try as well.

[David M]

FloppyMan,
Yes I am sure it is hooked up and detected properly because before I got that strange NTLDR message, I started the WindowsXP loading process...windows was loading unitll it stopped to tell me it could not detect any drives.

I pulled the battery which reset the CMOS...mistake? I reset the date on the CMOS.

I presume pulling the battery also reset the BIOS?

anyway, the CD drive came to life and tried to install winXP untill it determined it could not find the hard drives (which are still disconnected)

So we have eliminated the possibility that the CD drive is not connected properly and the BIOS is back to the factory setting?

Now the BIOS does not come up when I press the delete key. The power switch on the front of the computer no longer works as well. I had to pull the cord in the back out of the PSU to shut down

[Floppyman]

Hi David,

First off, the powerswitch probably works, you'll just have to hold it down for few seconds for the machine to shutdown. Are you saying you cannot get into the bios? Are you sure everything is hooked up correctly and you put the battery back in correctly? There is actually an easier way to clear the CMOS, look in your manual next time, it will tell you how to do so in there. I would just try the bare essentials for now. Just hook up videocard/cpu/motherboard/ram/cdrom/floppy/harddrives and nothing else. Then try to get into the BIOS again and take the harddrives out of the boot order. Then try to boot off the cd, and when prompted and install the RAID drivers as described above. HTH

[David M]

Floppyman,

The power switch works okay. It changed though from holding it down for a second to holding it down for about 5 seconds for it to shut down...for whatver reason.

I have a few questions:

Can pulling the battery for the CMOS delete the BIOS?

Does the BIOS reside on a chip with permanent memory or is the BIOS a piece of erasable software? In other words, is the BIOS burned onto a chip making it impossible to delete? If the BIOS is a piece of erasable software, where does it reside?...on a rewritable chip or on the hard drive?

The CMOS seems to reside on a chip given pulling the battery reset the CMOS. Is this correct?

The CMOS seems to be the foundation of everything. In other words, if I change or reset the CMOS then everything can get screwed up? So the pecking order seems to be: CMOS, BIOS, Operating System, Applications...is this correct?

I did try looking up the answers to these questions but could not find any answers on the internet.

I will try what you just recommended and get back in a little bit

Thanks Much,
David

[David M]

Ok...
The computer booted and here iswhat came up

CPU: AMD Engineering Sample Speed:2.20Ghz

Entering Setup...

Press For BBS Popup

1 AMD ' Hammer' North Bridge, Rev Unknown

Checking NVRAM..Update OK!

1028 MB OK

Auto Detecting PRI Master..ATAPI CD-ROM
Pri Master: Sony DVD RW DRU-510A 1.0d
Ultra DMA Mode-2

Auto detecting USB Mass Storage Devices (my drives are disconnected)

OO USB mass storage devices Found and Detected (how can this beis they are disconnected?)

CMOS settings wrong
CMOS Dte/TIme not set
Press F1 to Run Setup
PressF2 to load default Values

I thought this information might be usefull before I go ahead an make the next step.

Also, I have the SATA connectors of course, two IDE slots (one is bing used by the CD) and an empty PRI_RAID slot. Mobo pic--> http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=SK8N&langs=09#

I also removed the Audigy 2 ZS sound card from the board.

What do you recommend? Should the first thing I do is to go ahead and fix the CMOS errors?

Thanks

[David M]

Post mortem.....

I just tried booting up the machine....Its dead. All I get is a black screen now. I tried holding down the DEL key and let it boot...black screen. I dont understand why it booted earlier but not now.

Green diode on the Mobo is on.

Heatsink fan runs.

LED's on the keyboard flash occasionally.

Those are the only signs of life.

Perhaps the patient is not brain dead afterall?

Is it time to take it in to a computer shop? This is above my skill level. I built this computer from scratch to learn more about computers and for a personal challenge..its hard to do it, but perhaps it's time to admit defeat and take it to a professional?

I certainly am willing to try more things to make it work.

Thanks
David

[David M]

ANYONE?

Where does one start with no picture on screen? Dead cd drive. Dead floppy and CMOS which needs to be set?

[Floppyman]

Hi Dave,

I'm sorry to hear that everything has stopped working. I was sure that we were getting closer with this. Will the machine not boot at all now? What all is hooked up at present? Here's a good troubleshooting guide you can follow:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?threadid=12753

I hope this brings the machine back to life, and then we'll go from there. HTH