Need help setting up a new SATA HD

rozzzzarozzzza
edited August 2006 in Hardware
I recently just bought a Western Digital 300gig Sata II hd and have had a nightmare of a time trying to get it up and running.

I have tried everything from flashing the bios to using drivers pre-windows installation, and just can't get anything to recognise the drive. I even accidently erased a backup of my files on an external hard drive, because i mistook it for my new hard drive during a windows installation. Some breakthrough..

If anyone could helpe me it would be greatly appreciated.

- Mobo: Gigabyte GA-8PE800 Ultra Motherboard (bios is on F8)

- I also have a 80gig IDE hard drive, which i would like to use as a secondry hd.

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    Is the SATA drive your primary drive, the drive which contains/will contain the operating system? If so, you will need to:

    During the Windows installation process, or Windows repair installation, towards the beginning of it, a message will come across the bottom of the screen, words to the effect, "to install xyzabc, press F6 now." That is when you load RAID device drivers and in many cases drivers for SATA devices. You need to download the SATA drivers for you motherboard and have them on a floppy drive read for the 'F6' prompt.
  • rozzzzarozzzza
    edited July 2006
    Thanks for checking this out, but still no luck. :(

    I want my SATA to be the primary drive. I just tried what you said: loading my motherboards SATA driver pre-windows installation. But when i went to install and it only recoginsed my secondry IDE drive.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    If you want the new drive to be the C/ drive for a new Windows installation you will need to unplug the power from the existing hard drives and leave the power plug in on the drive you wish to use. Then with a floppy w/ drivers on the ready press 'F6' as Leonardo mentioned. When asked a little later on you will need to hit the 'S' key and put in the floppy.

    If you are still having problems after this we will need to know what motherboard you are using.
  • rozzzzarozzzza
    edited August 2006
    update.

    It seems the drive is recognised, but only intermitently

    In the device manager, after a scan for new hardware. The hard drive is appears then disappears, it is really bizarre. I can't get this drive to stay long enough to initialize it or anything :S.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited August 2006
    rozzzza wrote:
    update.

    It seems the drive is recognised, but only intermitently

    In the device manager, after a scan for new hardware. The hard drive is appears then disappears, it is really bizarre. I can't get this drive to stay long enough to initialize it or anything :S.
    Instead of device manager go to disk management.

    Right click "My Computer" > Manage > Storage (box on right side) > Disk Management. At this point you shoud get message about setting up a new drive. It is possible you may have a bad SATA cable or it may not be pushed in all the way.
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