SATA HD as boot up?

Macenko · Rated PG Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 12

Hello, I am new to this forum. I recently built a new comp from scratch. I have an A8N32-SLI Deluxe MB. I tried booting up with a WD Raptor SATA hd but for some reason it would not let me. Had to use an EID HD just to recognize Master drive. and install windows. SATA drive does not show as as a drive in windows but when i go to my Bios section it does show as some sort of 3rd drive or something to that affect. I still have alot to learn about SATA so if anyone have any input on how I can make my SATA drive Primary boot drive without having to reinstall Win XP. Please respond. I would really be grateful. Thank you.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Wed, 24 May 2006 22:19:30 Post Subject:

I know I have seen this personally but am drawing a blank.

One idea is that maybe there is a boot priority set in the BIOS excluding it from being used for the OS (but that doesn't explain it missing once in Windows on another drive).

Two, could you have it on a RAID channel without the proper driver installed? Single drive might just get lost without the right configuration.

Spire · Posted: Wed, 24 May 2006 22:28:17 Post Subject:

You have to have a floppy disk with your SATA drivers on it... Windows will ask you at the first blue screen if you want to install any RAID drivers...Press F6 at this point.

Later in the blue screen you will be asked to insert said floppy and windows will grab the driver and be able to see your SATA drive from then on.

If the floppy was not included with the MB, then you should be able to create one from the CD.

This information should be in your MB manual.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Wed, 24 May 2006 22:30:51 Post Subject:

You should only need a floppy if it is a RAID SATA header... Right?

I haven't used a floppy in a while, except for the system that boots from RAID 0... and all my systems are SATA now.

Spire · Posted: Wed, 24 May 2006 23:13:46 Post Subject:

As far as I know, Win XP does not support SATA natively, therefore you need a driver.

But I haven't delt with anything newer than my DFI NF4.

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

No, shouldnt' need any SATA drivers for plain SATA only for Raid

Enigmachine · Rated NC-17 Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 122

Hmm, you can't boot off of SATA, so how did you install Windows on your SATA drive then? Did you ghost the image or something? Because I've never actually had to change any settings in the BIOS to get any of my mobos to recognize and boot off SATA HD's.

I usually ghost (technically I don't use norton ghost anymore, since it is crap and needs patches to handle SATA correctly) a working image from an IDE drive to a SATA drive and then unplug the IDE drive (since it's still a boot partition and I don't want to boot off of that) and bingo, all done.

I know, it's a pretty basic question but we have to start somewhere to figure out the problem Smile

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

You should be able to boot off your SATA, my guess is there's a setting in the bios that's not set correctly, like the SATA controller is deactivated...

T-shirt · Posted: Thu, 25 May 2006 04:08:08 Post Subject:

Bios setting/driver install/read the manual
One thing, Are you overclocking AT ALL?
SATA is very timing sensitive, many O/C'd sata boot systems fail to boot with even minor O/Cs.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Thu, 25 May 2006 08:12:57 Post Subject:

That board has 2 chipsets for the SATA, one built on the controller one via a Silicon Image 3132 chip.

Make sure you are connecting it to the on board headers, not the Silicon Image one.