Can't Recognize SATA During XP Build

ayemacayemac
edited March 2008 in Hardware
I know, I know - this is an old issue and something that nearly everyone else has already resolved. I've removed my RAID config and a hard drive from my old PC and am attempting to rebuild it with XP on one SATA drive.

Long story short, I receive the following message:

Setup did not find any hard disk drives in your computer.

SATA drivers are loaded on a floppy and F6 is pushed to enable them. It recognizes the drivers, but after continuing the load it fails with the error above. BIOS also recognizes the SATA drive.
I've scoured this site and followed the config of my bios to a T:
http://www.msicomputer.com/support/sup_tshoot.asp#3_1
I've also followed this link and downloaded the proper SATA drivers:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=driver&maincat_no=1&prod_no=543

Both of these were provided by MSI, the maker of my mobo. It's an MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R with a built-in RAID controller.

I'm at a loss with MSI tech support. They're generally slow and non-responsive. I'm heading to bed now, but I'll check this post tomorrow evening to see what anyone thinks.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited March 2008
    I would say double check your bios settings. Seems pretty straight forward from that first link you posted. The trick is just to make sure you are using the right settings for XP and aren't mix/matching XP and legacy settings. The screen shots they are showing are for legacy OS's like win98 and not the right ones for XP.
  • ayemacayemac
    edited March 2008
    Yeah, I've double-checked the BIOS settings so many times I'm going cross eyed! Ha. I wasn't really going off of the screenshots - but more off of the descriptions of what they were recommending I check and change.

    The only thing I can think of is that the current SATA drive was part of a RAID 0 config that I had initially. I've since removed the other SATA drive, but this drive still pulls up labeled with RAID 0. What I don't know is whether that drive is labeled that way because of something I did, or if it's labeled that way by the system - maybe as a result of it still being tied up in a RAID config? I've ensured that RAID is disabled (per that first link I posted), but WinXP still does not see the drive after SATA drivers are loaded.

    Could it be that while I'm downloading and attempting to install Promise drivers that it's truly not a Promise driver that I need? Just to be clear - RAID and SATA drivers go hand in hand, right? Meaning that even though I need SATA only, it would appear that I am pulling both (from the second link).

    Another thought is that maybe I'm not adding all that I need to on the floppy. I copy over the root files and the WinXP directory, but nothing else. There's also a config file on that dowload, but it's 6 MB (floppy obviously won't hold it).

    Al...most...de...feated. *sigh*
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited March 2008
    Well no, not exactly. Sata is a driver for the physical device. Raid is a configuration that you can run on a raid controller. So according to the MOBO if you just need the Sata drivers if your drives are attached to the sata ports on the mobo. However if you are using a raid card then you'd need the raid drivers for the card even if you aren't planning on using raid.

    As for the floppy just download the drivers they are pointing to shouldn't be anything else you need.
  • ayemacayemac
    edited March 2008
    I've downloaded the driver package. It's about 7 MB in total size. I'm still not doing something right. Oh, if only MSI would call. Ugh.
  • botheredbothered Manchester UK
    edited March 2008
    When I built my last PC I tried with just one SATA to begin with. It saw it in the Bios but the install gave the same error. This was on an older mobo. I was told I had to install a PATA drive to get windows on because I didn't have a floppy and no way to get the SATA drivers installed. I did that then added the SATA drive.
  • ayemacayemac
    edited March 2008
    Yeah, I thought about doing that. However, I do have a floppy drive and I believe I have the proper drivers for the SATA controller (Promise).
  • ayemacayemac
    edited March 2008
    In case anyone ever reads this post, I got it figured out. I eventually followed the link below and got it resolved.

    http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=38845.0

    I'm guessing that it was one of the following, which I had not tried until tonight:

    ** APIC ACPI SCI IRQ - Enabled

    ** Clear NVRam option I always set to "YES" before the first boot after making hardware changes. I'm not sure how important this is but I understand that's what you're supposed to do. I believe it forces the motherboard to detect hardware changes. It reverts to "NO" after the reboot.

    ** PCI/IDE Busmaster set to "enabled" to speed things up outside of Windows.
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