New Mobo not recognizing SATA hard drive?

I understood you weren't seeing that "IDE Configuration" sub-menu, but hadn't realized you weren't seeing "Third IDE Master" and "Fourth IDE Master". I wish I'd realized that sooner. Look in your downloaded motherboard manual. Don't skip ahead and look in the BIOS yet. Look (as I indicated in an earlier post) in the downloaded motherboard manual (the file is e1491_k8v_se_deluxe.pdf). It's page number 76 of 140 (looking at the page number at the very bottom in the Adobe Acrobat frame -- you can click in that window and just type in a page number and hit enter to go to that page immediately). Or you can reference by the manual section number. Look at section 4.2.1, the BIOS Menu Screen. Don't look in your BIOS, look at the picture in your motherboard manual so you know what to look for in the BIOS.

Note that in the manual's picture of the BIOS Menu Screen, immediately underneath the sub-menu listings for Primary and Secondary IDE Masters and Slaves are sub-menu listings for "Third IDE Master" and "Fourth IDE Master". And under "Fourth..." is a listing for "IDE Configuration." Once you've looked at the illustration in the manual (p. 76 or Section 4.2.1) then see if you can find those sub-menus in your actual BIOS.

If they're not there, you should contact ASUS support again and ask what you need to do to get those entries to appear in your BIOS. Do they only appear in certain versions of the BIOS? If so, which ones?

Notice also in your mobo manual that middle section of the BIOS menu screen. Now when you look at that same page of your BIOS do you see your DVD drive and hard drive listed in the area labeled (in the manual) "Configuration fields"? Or is only your DVD drive listed and not your SATA hard drive? Or neither one?

I think we're both getting a little punchy from working on this so long. And I'm in the middle of trying to install some virtual machine software for the first time, and am also installing and configuring a new and much larger hard drive and imaging my old drive partitions over to the new drive; so I probably won't be posting tomorrow. Why don't you also take a day off from this. I will read over carefully all our posts, as I've apparently missed some important info in your responses. (I thought you were seeing those "Third/Fourth IDE Master" menu items, and were only missing that "IDE Configuration" menu listing, for example.)

I'll be happy to continue working with you on this, beginning again on Wednesday, if you want to. But I don't want you to feel you have to continue if you're really fed up and have no desire to keep working on it. That would certainly be understandable and acceptable to me. You have to decide if it's worth it to you, because I understand the bulk of the real frustration and aggravation is on your end. I understand how it feels to keep tweaking your hardware and your BIOS and continue seeing the installation fail. So let's continue on Wednesday if you feel like it. But understand you have no obligation to drive yourself crazy on my account. It's difficult to read between the lines in forum posts, but I'm wondering if maybe you want me to say flat out, it's OK for you to stop. Of course it is. I understand that and I trust you do also. I've learned some stuff from this and I've enjoyed working with you and if we don't go any further that's OK. So take a day off from this and relax a bit and let me know whether we should continue a bit longer or not.

 

Eezak,
I will gladly continue if it means that I might possibly get this thing to work. Obviously, many people have the same problems with this particular mobo, and just as many have found a solution to the perplexing undetected hard drive, so there HAS to be an answer somewhere out there! I think with this new information, perhaps we could be heading in the right direction!

Looking at the manual (BTW....my manual says that it is e1872_k8v_se_deluxe.pdf rather than the e1491, if that matters.), I do now see what you are talking about, and NO, that does NOT show up in my BIOS. I am going to take your suggestion and contact Asus about which BIOS I should download to find this information, and see where I can go from there.

As far as the "Configuration Fields" goes, ONLY my dvd drive shows up in that, with all the others being "not detected".

Keeping the faith.....for now!

 

Found something else on the Asus forums that I may try....I'll let you know!

 

I've been looking at the ASUS forums also. I know I said I wouldn't post today, but I felt I shouldn't hang on to this info.

1) First, your floppy drive isn't an external USB floppy drive is it? It has to be the old-fashioned internal floppy drive that plugs into the floppy connector on the mobo or it won't work during installation.

2) I found two different "Stickies" (Threads judged by forum moderators as especially important and of wide interest and so permanently placed near the top of a forum's list of thread topics.) with these words: "USE EZ-FLASH METHOD - ASUS UPDATE HAS CORRUPTED MANY FLASHES"

So if you used ASUS update your BIOS may not have been properly flashed. But I think ASUS update may be the ASUS BIOS update software that has to be run from within Windows. If that's so, that obviously isn't an issue since you can't yet do that on this computer.

And this:

3) "In the very beginning of the Windows XP Setup, you will be asked for Third Party Drivers.
Press <F6>.
Setup continues, and later you will be asked to provide the drivers."

So apparently the Windows install routine may not ask you to insert your SATA drivers floppy until later (maybe after it's loaded all the other drivers from CD?). So keep your eyes on that same area at the bottom, waiting and watching for the chance to insert your SATA drivers floppy disk when prompted. (I'd forgotten about this, but I'm pretty sure I encountered this when I built my first ASUS mobo-based system about 4 years ago. Just as you've described, I thought my F6 keypress was just not registering or was being ignored. After many attempts (and lots of tweaking BIOS settings, swapping stuff around), wearing out my F6 key, I happened to see the instruction to insert my driver floppy a good while after I'd pressed the F6 key (I think after the install had copied some dozens of hardware drivers from the CD). I'm sorry I didn't remember that earlier.

So there are some more possibilities. USB floppy drive for an XP install is a non-starter just as a USB keyboard can be. ASUS update often isn't a reliable way to flash your ASUS BIOS. And the Windows install may well be registering your F6 key press but waits until later to ask for the driver floppy to be inserted.

Well, sure.... !*&$%#@!$#

OK, USB floppy drive won't work (and I'm guessing you're not using one of those anyway). That's fair enough, but they might mention that in both the motherboard quick setup guide, the full manual and in the WinXP installation instructions too, along with a similar warning about using a USB keyboard.

But why oh why would they continue to have available for download BIOS flashing software that often doesn't flash a BIOS correctly? And why doesn't the Windows XP install routine warn you (I mean, with a message right there at the bottom of the screen where you're expecting to be told immediately to insert your driver floppy) that you won't be asked to insert your driver floppy for several minutes -- or "awhile", or "just after, according to our best estimates, you'll probably have decided something's wrong and given up!"

I'm guessing that those "Third/Fourth IDE Master" sub-menu items will appear only after you've been able to get the SATA controller drivers loaded from the floppy, by the way.

Please do let me know what you've found on the ASUS forums and if you've made any progress at all. (I guess you're not taking the day off either? )

Your SATA drive is a Seagate isn't it? You should also try to contact their customer support for some help. If they say it's a motherboard problem and don't provide any info well, that's that. I agree and think it's pretty clear it is a mobo problem -- getting the SATA controller drivers to install. Still, Seagate may well be familiar with the problem and have a solution for it so it's worth a try I think.

I'll take a peek in sometime later today to see what you've found on the ASUS forums, assuming my computer isn't down the rest of the day. I've got lots to do and something could go haywire -- but I guess I don't need to explain that to you! rolleyes

 

hi i m new here...
i am from malaysia. so my english is not very good. sorry for that.

regarding to your problem.. my suggestion is you have to download sata driver and then put that file together with win xp (just put in anywhere). then burn in cd.

it doesnt detect because win xp doesn't have sata driver. thats why you should include sata driver in your xp cd. ok good luck!

 

and make sure that driver is seagate sata driver according to your hard disk model.

 

Thanks for your suggestions hanglekuk. But Copasta's problem is getting the Win XP install to accept and use the drivers for the SATA controller that his SATA drive is plugged into on the motherboard.

And I think making an XP slipstream disk is, generally a good idea (incorporating SP2 if necessary, adding any additional hotfixes and critical and security updates right on the CD), but in this case I think it would just add to Copasta's frustration. At least for now, I think it's best we stick to his regular installation disk.

I don't believe any special SATA drivers for the hard drive itself are necessary. Once the motherboard SATA controller drivers are accepted by the Win XP install setup, a SATA I drive plugged into the controller should work fine, as the controller and its drivers are the interface between the circuit board on the hard drive and the OS.

If I've misunderstood your suggestions, hanglekuk, please let us know. Or if I'm just wrong, please provide a weblink to document what you're saying. But if you read a bit on the ASUS forums devoted to the topic of trying to install WinXP to SATA drives plugged into this motherboard I think you'll see the problems are a bit different than you think.

Your English is very good, hanglekuk, and thank you for trying to help.

Copasta, I've just read one thread in the ASUS forums where a user suggested that this motherboard often won't work at all with any XP install to SATA drives...either SATA I or SATA II (even if the jumper is set to the slower SATA I speed). But I'm betting that this is a actually a a faulty conclusion from unsolved (but not unsolvable, I hope!) problems/possible missteps installing WinXP to a SATA drive plugged into this particular mobo -- especially the Win XP install not asking for the SATA driver floppy until some time after the user has pressed the F6 key as I noted in my post above.

Will look in tomorrow to see if you've made any progress. If not, I think you really should try to swap your SATA for an IDE drive if you can, as I suggested earlier. But if you can't find someone to trade drives with we may yet find a SATA solution.

 

One more thing, Copasta. I downloaded and will now use the same file/mobo manual you have. Even though both manual files for this mobo have the same number of pages, the one you're using is larger than the one I had downloaded. Maybe it has some additional BIOS photos or illustrations. At any rate I thought I should be using the same manual file as you to eliminate at least one possible source of confusion.

 

just give it a try.

i got the same problem before, it didn't recognize sata hard disk. but when i included sata driver in xp cd, it just worked fine.

if it doesn't work, it will just cost you one blank cd and a couple of hours.

 

Ok, I don't know if this has already been mentioned or not or if it even applies, but I offer it anyway. In my old PC I have an ASUS P4P800 and when I first hooked up my SATA drive I had to enable P-SATA in the BIOS. Also make sue you have the SATA drive plugged into the right connector on the MB. On my board the two SATA connectors are numbered; SATA 1 and SATA 2. A single SATA drive goes into #1.

 

Hey man I may have a solution to your problem; I had a similar problem that drove me nuts when I first made my attempts to install Vista Ultimate on my new computer. What I did to solve the issue was, I went to my motherboard site,ABIT, and checked for any driver updates for SATA, depending on what type of SATA you use may or may not vary. I got the drivers and had to use them at install to add additional drivers to make my HD work. Yeah, as far as I know my HD's were detected in BIOS. But heres a catch, are you using IDE and SATA together? If so, you may want to set your IDE jumper chip on your IDE HD to CS (Cable Select) and see if that resolves the issue. Usually SATA sets these things by itself(Love Sata) ALSO!, Check and see if you are using SATA2 and not normal SATA. Some boards are not compatible with SATA 2 and judging from the size of the HD you have It maybe SATA 2. If you can provide additional info about the hardware I would love that

 

Another thing, and you may not like this but the HD might be defective... never trust E-Bay trust newegg. But please check if you Mobo is sata 2 compatible.

 

He only has the one SATA hard drive plugged into the motherboard and an IDE DVD/CD drive and a floppy drive. There are no other hard drives hooked up besides the one SATA drive. He has set the jumper on the SATA drive to restrict it's capabilities/speed to the SATA I standard.

As for his hardware, I think it's listed piecemeal in various posts, but not in one spot. Maybe Copasta will do that now if he's still working on this.

Copasta, it wouldn't be a bad idea to list your mobo make and model, version of Windows you're attempting to install, and make and model of your SATA hard drive, DVD/CD drive, floppy drive, case and power supply info, and anything else you have hooked up to this system currently, just so we have it all in one place.

 

hanglekuk's suggestion that you burn the SATA divers onto a CD along with a copy of your Windows install disk is an interesting one. Combining a Windows install disk, via CD burning, with additional data and features (service packs, hot fixes, and critical and security updates, as well as additional third party drivers, for example) is called slipstreaming. If you do a web search on slipstreaming you can find a number of web sites that describe the process.

But given your previous problems while attempting to use a copy of your installation disk, and given that creating a slipstreamed WinXP install disk is no mean task, and finally, realizing that there's no guarantee the end result would work better than what you've been trying already, I'm reluctant to suggest you spend the time (several hours at least) trying to prepare the necessary files and materials to burn a slipstreamed installation CD.

But do a web search (or search the forums here at MG) and take a look if you want to see what's involved in creating and burning slipstreamed XP install CD. You could certainly simplify the process by just combining your XP install CD with your SATA drivers and not worrying about adding any service packs, or Windows updates/hotfixes etc. to the mix. This would reduce the amount of time needed to create such a CD, but there's still no guarantee that this would work. It might, though.

 

Ok.....I'll try to list everything I have hooked up here, though the case is just an old case I had for another computer. Here's what I know:

Asus Socket 754 K8V-SE Deluxe Motherboard

Seagate Baracuda 7200.8 Model ST3300831AS SATA Hard Drive
(Also have Seagate 7200.10 ST3300820AS SATA drive that I could use, but it isn't hooked up at the moment)

Windows XP Professional

Ultra V Series Model 500p power supply

Lite-on 16x DVD-RW

Floppy is old from another computer

Nothing else is hooked up at the moment. Hope this helps!

 

Yep, it's always good to have the hardware all listed together. I should have asked you to post that early on. Have you tried anything further? I was hoping that maybe you'd discovered that the instructions to insert your driver floppy were there after all, just not immediately following your pressing the F6 key. I guess that wasn't so, or maybe you just haven't had a chance to try that yet.

 

Haven't gotten much further on it. I was out last night, and only had a few minutes to test some things out. I did, at one point the other day, get the message to "Insert media in proper drive to install necessary drivers" or something like that, but it didn't seem to work either. Said something like, " A:???? file not found, please insert proper media and press any key". I don't know.

I did get a reply back from Asus, which stated that they can fix the problem, but I should call their support number for further help. I haven't had a chance to as of yet, but will probably do that tonight (I wonder if they are going to charge me for that?). Hopefully they will find a solution.

I tried to load the SATA drivers onto a burned Windows XP disk, but I now keep getting the message "A disk read error occurred, press Ctr-Alt-Del to restart". I think I'm going to format the drive again and start over...maybe there is too much junk on there now with all the different files I've been trying to load. What do you think?

 

Your floppy drive is an old used one. Have you tested it on another machine to make sure it's working properly? A bit of a hassle, but you need to check anything that could be a contributing underlying cause, such as a defective floppy drive.

Have you tried using different floppy disks, just in case one of them is defective? (Yeah, a defective disk should produce some sort of error message, but floppies are cheap and that's one more easy thing to try.)

If you try to burn a Windows install CD and want to include the SATA controller drivers on that, I think you have to make sure those drivers are put into the correct folder (where the other drivers are that the install starts copying to the hard drive). I think just burning them to the disk, whether to the root directory or in their own separate folder, won't work.

ASUS may well have used several different VIA SATA chips on various motherboards, so be sure you've downloaded the correct drivers for that specific VIA SATA controller chip on your motherboard.

Even though the VIA chip seems to be the first choice to use with a single SATA drive, you may also want to try (if you haven't already) downloading the drivers for the Promise SATA chip, copying those to a floppy disk, hooking up the drive to the Promise controller and seeing if you can get the drive recognized that way. Of course, also be sure to check and change any relevant BIOS settings if you change the drive from the VIA to the Promise SATA controller.

As for the phone support from ASUS, I'm guessing if this mobo is no longer under warranty there may well be a per minute charge. But if the mobo is still covered by warranty the phone support may be free. Why don't you email ASUS and ask them if there will be any charge? Given all the possible wrinkles that may need to be checked (including lots we've already tried, but support may want you to try again) if you have to pay a per minute charge it may wind up costing you as much as buying a small, new IDE hard drive.

Reformatting the hard drive is OK I guess, but doesn't the install routine do that each time? Doesn't it repartition the drive and do a quick format right at the beginning of the install? (Sorry, it's been too long since I last ran a Win XP install. I've found it to be so darn stable and reliable that unlike, say Win98, I've never yet had to reinstall it to fix a problem -- knock on wood!)

 

Time to blow off some more steam!!!!!!!!!!......

I've had it! I've exhausted EVERY ounce of energy I have for this piece of garbage, and I've had ENOUGH! This crappy excuse for a motherboard is going either on Ebay, or the trash compactor. :wave

I will NEVER buy another piece of Asus garbage again in my life! I don't care WHAT all the reviews say that Asus is the best of the best. Yeah, they're about as good as their technical support...which, in case I haven't made myself clear enough....SUCKS! I haven't had ONE problem with my Abit, and I think I'll start surfing Ebay for one of them.

Thanks for trying! Anyone want a piece of plastic that doesn't recognize your HD, even though it shows up EVERYWHERE, and ultimately makes you want to switch to Mac?:cry

 

You've certainly tried hard and long to get your SATA drive up and running for this install. I think it might be best for you to do as you suggest and say "enough!" Sell this mobo and look for a different kind. Maybe you can find an identical model to the Abit that you're already familiar with?

 

Actually, I'm going to try one more thing. I've found someone with the same motherboard that is going to burn me a copy of the original drivers and utilities disk, so I can see if that works for installation of Windows. Aside from that, I think my other suggestion will stand....EBAY!

 

This person with the same mobo....is this someone you know personally, in real life? Or someone you only see on the internet? If they live close to you, I'm wondering if they have a SATA drive hooked up to their mobo and if they'd be willing to let you hook your drive up to their mobo to see if it's fully recognized? But maybe the copy of the mobo CD-ROM they're using will do the trick and you won't need to try anything further. Hope so.

What exactly happened with ASUS support? You didn't tell us whether they suggested anything or not. Was it just stuff we've already tried or were they non-responsive to specific questions you asked?

 

I received the disks in the mail today....one cd with utilities, drivers, etc. and one floppy with the necessary "F6" driver.

Tried to install Windows XP Professional again, loaded F6 drivers, restarted....and no luck. :-( Had to leave for a funeral.

Came back, and though it's pretty late, I tried once again, knowing that I got further than I ever did before...changed some things in BIOS so that RAID was disabled, and installed Windows once again.....



SUCCESS!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!! IT WORKED!!!!!!!!! WOOOHHOOO!

Windows has just completed installation, and all is right with the world!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now.....I have to get some sleep! I will post tomorrow with accollades for all who helped and try to go over EXACTLY what worked finally! Thanks to ALL, and I'm glad that I decided to take that last chance on this thing!:major

 

Man oh man! How sweet it is! Congratulations!!!!!

Yes, please do let us know what you finally figured out or what you think made the difference so that you were at last able to complete the Windows installation.

 

Ok, I'll try to figure this out, because I'm not sure I even know what made the difference, whether one thing, or multiple issues working together. This is the best that I can remember.....

First of all, like I said I got my hands on the original drivers and utilities disk and floppy for the "F6" install option. I haven't even used the cd yet, so I'm guessing the floppy played a huge part in working this out. However, at first it didn't work, so I changed the BIOS settings to disable the Promise Controller (I think it was that one....hmmm.) and disable the RAID setting.

However, I think it might have had something to do with Windows as well, because like I said, it still wouldn't work....it just kept getting to the "Windows will restart to continue installation", and then it would reboot and start loading the setup files again, essentially restarting what it had just completed. This COULD HAVE been a slight oversight on my behalf (and a very stupid one, if I'm thinking correctly, that MIGHT HAVE solved the problem long ago...although, I think I still needed the correct floppy driver!).....it wasn't until I actually REMOVED the installation disk from the drive, let the computer reboot, and then re-install the disk and continue installation procedure.....that it FINALLY worked! Could I have been messing up the Windows Installation all along with this little oversight? I certainly hope not, but if I did, I certainly learned a valuable lesson on that!

Regardless, it now works perfectly! It even reads the dvd-rom drive (SATA also) that it isn't supposed to (according to the manual!) SO......

To ALL of you who contributed your time and efforts in this matter, A big, hearty, warm THANK YOU!!!!!!! You guys are the best! Everytime I screw something up, you bail me out, no questions asked.....well, actually it's ALOT of questions asked, but thanks anyway!

To Eezak.......who waded through endless posts, walked me with baby steps through the world of the personal p.c. and showed me exactly how little I really knew!:confused For enduring my endless, frequent outbursts of RAGE and horrific threats against plastic parts and their creators!rolleyes For the calluses that HAVE to be on your fingers by now for typing post after post, trying with all your might to figure out exactly what was going on, or lack thereof, in my computer! All while probably helping countless others at the same time. To you, my friend, KUDOS!!!!!!!!!!!:major

It is said in the book of Genesis, that God Almighty created the world and everything in it in six days, and on the seventh day, He rested....

For me, it's been about a SEVENTY DAY journey, and now......I think I deserve it!:zzz

Goodnight to all, and thanks again! See you on the next project!!!!:drool

 

I believe that'll be F6 anyway I have the same problem except when I go to setup the sata drivers Vista 64 bit setup goes WTF is this and throws a major panic attack. I can't get Vista Installed past this. Oh Microsoft we love you NOT

 

Interesting so basically what you do is switch off sata in bios and I guess it fools the system into thinking sata is an ide HDD instead. Whatever works...must try that myself right now. See you all in 30 days lol

 

Thanks for your summary of what you think may have finally made the installation go to completion, Copasta. I have some more thoughts I'd like to add also, including info about some common misconceptions people have about the hard drive size limit and Win XP. But I'll have to wait until tomorrow to post my summing up.

I have one question for you also, Copasta. You wrote: "so I changed the BIOS settings to disable the Promise Controller (I think it was that one....hmmm.) and disable the RAID setting." Did you actually disable the Promise Controller or did you enable it but then disable its RAID capabilities in the BIOS? I'm not sure how it works on your motherboard, but I installed a SATA hard drive in my Gigabyte mobo computer for the first time just a couple of days ago and had a few SATA controller driver problems and problems with the related BIOS settings. I was about to post what I had learned in this thread thinking that might be helpful to you even though you have a different brand of motherboard. And then I saw that you had finally managed to complete the install of Win XP. Still, I think I'll post those additional discoveries and observations along with a few other things tomorrow.

Again congratulations Copasta. You persevered in spite of your understandable frustration. Computer problems can be so aggravating! But again and again you went back into the fray and kept trying in spite of your frustration and finally succeeded. You had by far the most aggravating and difficult part of the work. I was just a spectator and while I was sorry for your frustration and difficulties you were the one who actually experienced the demoralizing failures, the paucity of helpful info from tech support and from the computer and OS install routines yourself.

Again, don't forget how much you learned in the process -- how to reset your CMOS/BIOS, how to upgrade and downgrade to different BIOS versions, how to read and recognize key parts of your motherboard on the mobo diagrams and on the board itself. And a good deal more besides I think

I was glad to be of some help, but I've realized looking back that I could possibly have made things go at least a bit faster if I had done a few things differently, but I'll save those observations for my next post also.

 

Well Itried it but forgot the vista registration key and can't find it so thats me screwed. Anyway I tried turning sata drivers off in bios and that's not a good trick because if you only have sata drives then how is windows setup going to see them

 

I just think vista and sata are a match not made in heaven. I can install windows xp 32 and 64 bit using sata drivers and no problems it's only vista that seems to have the problem and I too have an asus k8u-x board.

 

Suggest other posters start new threads if still having problems

djcalzar, we'll be glad to help you with your installation problems, but this thread deals with problems installing Win XP to a system with a specific model ASUS motherboard. Your problems installng 64 bit Vista to (I assume) a system with a different motherboard are likely to be somewhat, maybe even quite a bit, different. And given this thread is so long, I suggest you start your own new thread, if you haven't already done so, rather than use this one.

I'll keep an eye out for your new thread, though I have no experience installing Vista as the only machine we have Vista on in our household is a Dell laptop and the 32 bit Vista Home Premium OS came pre-installed on that.

I'd suggest you use a title something like "Problems with installing 64 bit Vista to SATA hard drive" or something similar.

 

I'm going to finish up (I hope :hyper) with a couple of posts on this thread about what, because of it's length and content, I'll refer to as the CASE! -- "Copasta's Asus/SATA Epic!"

Several posters suggested at least some of the problems had to do with a hard drive size limit. This topic has come up a number of times here at MG as a suggested cause of installation problems. Here is the situation regarding hard drive sizes and Win XP, according to my understanding.

This limit, which is sometimes inherent in the OS itself which is being installed and sometimes due to a limitation of the BIOS on the motherboard being used (which can effectively pass this limitation on to the operating system being installed), varies from 128 GB to 137 GB. The main thing to check is whether the OS you wish to install supports 48 bit LBA -- Logical Block Addressing -- and whether your BIOS also supports 48 bit LBA. For those who'd like to read in more detail about the specific reasons for this size issue (and why there are two different number that may be cited as a limit -- 128 GB and 137 GB) here's a link I found (note the menu at the top left hand side of this linked page -- you have to click through the various sections of that menu to read all the info about LBA and the hard drive size problems LBA is designed to fix):

http://www.48bitlba.com/index.htm

Often there is confusion about this limit when it's encountered. It should not, of itself, keep you from being able to install any version of Windows from 98 through XP at least. And I'm guessing it probably wouldn't keep you from installing Vista either as 128 (or 137) GB is plenty of room for a Vista install.

All that the limitation does is restrict the size of the partition that can be created on the hard drive so that on larger hard drives some of the space isn't available for use -- at least not during the installation of the OS. But this doesn't prevent the drive from being recognized or installed to, it just doesn't use any space beyond whichever limit applies (128 or 137 GB). Once the installation completes the user may then attempt to add additional logical drives via partitioning, for example, to make use of the remaining space.

A better solution would be to first find out if the limitation is inherent in the OS being installed or is a function of an old BIOS on the motherboard. In the latter case carefully flashing the mobo BIOS may allow the full drive size to be recognized. In the case of Windows XP, the hard drive size limitation is only found in the earliest versions of XP -- those that don't include even Service Pack 1. SP1 (as well as SP2, of course), among other things, includes a fix for the hard drive size limitation. But realize that this only fixes the inherent limitation in the OS, it cannot fix a similar limitation in the motherboard BIOS, if that also is present. That would have to be taken care of by flashing/upgrading to a newer version of the BIOS, as suggested above, if it is available.

 

Thank you both (Eezak and Copasta). I actually learned a lot reading this extremely long post. Great dedication and persistence.!!!

 

I read some more material at the 48bitlba website and apparently this statement of mine was in error and should be disregarded:

"Once the installation completes the user may then attempt to add additional logical drives via partitioning, for example, to make use of the remaining space."

Apparently once Windows is installed, attempting to use "leftover" space on a hard drive with an OS or BIOS that doesn't support 48 bit LBA won't necessarily work and may result in data loss and file corruption so using additional partitions to make use of leftover space on such systems is not a good idea.

 

Army 239, thanks for taking the time to read this very long thread! I certainly hoped there were at least a few others besides Copasta who might find at least some of the info here helpful.

I am still working on preparing a summary of the various difficulties that installing Win XP to a SATA drive may entail. This will reflect my work with Copasta on this thread, my own recent install of XP to a SATA drive connected to a Gigabyte mobo and the knowledge I gained from looking at a couple of other mobo manuals I downloaded from the web.

I don't particularly want to add yet another long post to this already long thread however, especially not at the tail end. So I think I'll probably post a much shorter summary of what I know on the subject and include the fuller article as a text attachment. That way I won't load up the thread with yet another long inline post, but the short summary will be here so anyone can decide for themselves whether they wish to read in detail the lengthier attachment. I expect to finish up that final summary and attachment for this thread sometime this weekend.

 

Funnily enough though I've never experienced any problems installing Windows XP 32 or 64Bit on my PC as the setup recognises ULI SATA Drivers that I have and continues the process. It seems only Vista 64 Bit has problems recognising ULI SATA Drivers 32 bit of Vista Also has no problems installing the SATA drivers.

 

Eezak is right. Asus MB detected SATA harddrive as Third IDE Master ( as long as you plug your SATA cable to SATA1 on your MB ). You have to go to Bios Menu Screen and change your BOOT Priority from DVD or First IDE Master to the Third Ide Master. Then you are ready to go.

 

Make sure that your motherboard bios supports native drives. Some motherboards bios settings support the option to set legacy drives or native you should set that to native for that will support both IDE and SATA drives to all be reconized by windows. As far as windows XP May have a problem with it So you should also consider upgrading to vista ultimate 32 or 64 bit. Way better for gaming anyways then XP.

 

Also make sure if your bios has a legacy and native setting, switch it to native for that will support the use of IDE and SATA Drives to run together

 

bbs
Old thread.......................

 

I have just read this thread (all 5 pages) with great interest as I have the same problem with an Asus K8V and Western Digital 80Gb Sata HDD which doesn't get recognised.
I don't have the original mobo CD and wonder if any of you great 'helpers' out there could provide me with a copy. Thank you in anticipation.