DFI Infinity NF UltraII-M2 motherboard and SATA

I have a new DFI Infinity NF Ultra II-M2 motherboard and I'm trying to install WinXP to a single new SATA drive. I was able to successfully install XP to an IDE drive in this system (once I changed from a USB to a PS/2 keyboard, but that's another story!), but that was a drive I borrowed from another machine just to use temporarily. I can't use the IDE drive in the new system as it's actually the replacement for a failing HD in a machine I've been using for three years.

The new SATA Western Digital drive for the new system is the only drive in that system now and it shows up in the BIOS. But when I try to install WinXP Home (with SP2) it appears that Windows setup isn't able to copy any info to the hard drive. In addition, when I run the Western Digital Lifeguard Tools that software doesn't seem to be able to "find" the SATA drive even though it shows up in the BIOS.

Is anyone familiar with this motherboard's BIOS? I need help getting everything set right so that the drive is fully recognized and I can install WinXP Home to it.

I've set the BIOS boot sequence to 1) CD-ROM, 2) hard drive, 3) floppy, 4) other. (Also tried turning 3 and 4 off entirely out of desperation, but that made no difference of course.)

I've tried enabling the RAID features of the board (even though there's not a second drive in the system), loading the RAID drivers (by hitting the F6 key during Windows setup). No matter what I try -- RAID enabled and RAID drivers loaded, RAID turned off -- the BIOS shows the drive, but I can't get past the text part of the Windows install. While the BIOS is listed under some of the BIOS entries, it seems pretty clear it's not fully recognized. What else do I need to do to get it hooked up right so I can install Windows?

For those who've read my recent posts about my adventures trying to install WinXP to this new system to an IDE drive with a USB keyboard let me say that I'm using the PS/2 keyboard that worked with the IDE drive to attempt the install to the new SATA drive in the new system. But the symptoms are pretty much the same as when I was using the USB keyboard -- Windows setup gets as far as the end of the text portion of setup, the message "Setup is starting Windows" appears, and the screen goes black and the system reboots. Subsequent attempts to boot from the hard drive yield the error message "ntldr missing."

I'll be checking the DFI website/forums shortly and surely can find the info there, but if anyone here knows this motherboard BIOS I'd appreciate some help.

 

Finally got the DFI motherboard BIOS to properly recognize and configure the SATA hard drive. Was a matter of running through various combinations of BIOS settings until I hit on the right one. The manual that came with the board had a lot of info in it, but didn't really tell me all I needed to know. Would have liked it to have included a list of instructions for BIOS settings for at least 4 drive configurations -- single IDE boot drive (no RAID), single SATA boot drive (no RAID), two IDE RAID configured drives, and two SATA RAID configured drives.

Everything humming along fine now at last though and I do like this motherboard. But manuals for so much computer gear are still inadequate. Too much gibberish used and too much important info left out. In some parts of the manual about the BIOS of this board there were areas where all it did was just list the onscreen choices you see when you're checking the BIOS settings with no explanation at all about what the different settings did or meant. Not to pick on DFI though. It's still all too common as I said. And that's all the whining I'm going to do (this time!).