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Thread: New system woes

  1. #1
    Member lazerbeam's Avatar
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    New system woes

    Bought a new Gigabyte MOBO (GA-K8N Pro SLI) & installed a Maxtor 300 Gb SATA disk drive. I seem to be having a problem getting the ^*$&%* to thing to boot. After Win XP creates the partition (I set it up to use the entire drive). It formats, copies Win files over ok, then it reboots. After the systems shuts down and then reboots, it sits there for a few minutes with a blank screen. Then I get a message saying there is an incompatible hardware configuration. For some reason it appears that after the initial OS files are copies and the reboot is done, Windows can’t find the disk drive. I’ve tried just about every bios combo one can think of but I can’t seem to overcome the problem. Need help..
    Last edited by lazerbeam; 09-12-2005 at 10:58 AM.

  2. #2
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    Did u install the SATA drivers from a flopy b4 the installation of the OS? As u boot from the CD an the installation begings at the bottum of the screen it'll ask if u want to install drivers an what key to press, think it's F6.

  3. #3
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    yes, you need to load the drivers using the f6 option.

  4. #4
    Member lazerbeam's Avatar
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    Unfortunately there is only a CD that came with the MOBO and it requires Windows to install the system drivers.. uhh well maybe not.. I will see if I can load them using the F6 option..

  5. #5
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    What you need to do is go to the Motherboard maker's website & download
    the SATA Drivers onto either a Floppy or a CD ... then do what Midknyte said .. when
    you install the os, hit F6 to install the needed sata drivers .. after windows installs
    them, it will ask for the os cd again ... that will do it


    See this url for the driver you need ... it is only .31mb in size

    http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Motherboa...%20Pro-SLI.htm

  6. #6
    Member lazerbeam's Avatar
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    Went to Gigabyte site & downloaded & extracted drivers. Used the F6 option but it seems that WinXP reads the disk, prepares to copy files but never actually writes them to the HD. In desperation, I tried a brand new 80 GB IDE-ATA drive. Figured it would not need any special drivers. WinXP found the disk formatted it, copied necessary files and rebooted. But as with the SATA drive, after the reboot completed, it could not find the disk.. Now I’m really stumped. Is there a way to use the “repair” mode of XP (one of the options it offers after the failed reboot) and manually copy the Nvidia drivers? Is there a possibility that there is something wrong with the MOBO bios settings?? I’m getting kind of desperate.

  7. #7
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    Try installing windows with the bare minimums. Use your 300gb drive(assuming it has SP1 or SP2, otherwise that could be part of the problem), 1 stick of ram, video card, remove all other PCI cards, any extra hard drive or cd/dvd drives. If windows recognizes and is able to partition and format the drive, then the SATA drivers are not needed.

  8. #8
    Member lazerbeam's Avatar
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    Nirvana!!! The answer was to update the bios and… turn on the IDE/SATA Raid Function (a global setting) and turn off the RAID function for each of the 4 IDE and 4 SATA ports. Here are the settings.. & FYI: Windows does not require installing SATA drivers (F6 option)

    IDE/SATA RAID function - Enabled
    IDE Primary Master RAID - Disabled
    IDE Primary Slave RAID - Disabled
    IDE Secondary Master RAID - Disabled
    IDE Secondary Slave RAID - Disabled
    Serial-ATA 1 - Enabled
    SATA 1 Primary RAID - Disabled
    SATA 1 Secondary RAID - Disabled
    Serial-ATA 2 - Enabled
    SATA 2 Primary RAID - Disabled
    SATA 2 Secondary RAID - Disabled

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