formatting with new SATA HD

[m3rk4b4]

hey i just got a new maxtor sata HD with 8mb cache. I am about to make it my primary drive and run my OS on it. I have never used a SATA drive and was wondering if anyone had any tips for me. I need to format and install windows xp pro. I have a asus a7n8x deluxe mobo / 1 gig ddr 3200 ram / athlox xp 3200. Any tips would be awesome, this is something i have never done before. thanks alot guys

-merk

[fishybawb]

Boot off the XP CD with the SATA driver floppy in the drive and press F6 when it says "Press F6 to load third party RAID... blah". Select your driver. Partition/format and install as usual

Edit: Oh yeah, set the primary boot drive as SATA or SCSI as it may be on the Asus boards afterwards.

[Midknyte]

it's the same as any other drive. make sure to have the sata card drivers when you do the xp install. there will be a message to press F6 to add additional controller drivers. other than that, it's exactly the same.

[m3rk4b4]

ok i do all that...but when i get the the part that says "press enter to setup windows" it tells me there is no storage drive found to setup windows on and it just makes me reboot? Why wouldnt it see the drive when i just had it detect it with the floppy?

-merk

[fishybawb]

I've got no idea if this will help you, but Windows setup won't detect my SATA drive if I've got a second hard disk installed - don't ask me why. Disconnect it before installing, then reconnect it afterwards and everything's fine. Hope that applies/works for you

[tantone]

If you're not setting up the SATA drive is a RAID config, there should be no need to install the drivers during the Windows install.

Your BIOS is where the single SATA drive is recognized. If the BIOS sees it, then your Windows install will to.

Only advice I have for you is to remove any other drives except for the SATA drive before you install XP. That way there's no chance on installing to the wrong drive. Also, make sure your BIOS is set to boot to that drive in the proper boot order (ex. I have floppy, CD-ROM, SATA drive).

After the install, put any other drives you have back in and make sure the boot order is still correct.