LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Stray Dog Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 5

Im using this computer for a storage computer, I have 2, 250GB HDDs in it in the IDE slot and CD-RW and DVD-RW combo drive in the other IDE slot. I recently bought a 500 GB SATA drive and have been having trouble getting windows to see my SATA drive. Im running WinXP pro SP2. Ive been looking online for info on it and came across this site and thought Id give it a try.

I hope this is enough info, if not let me know. any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeff

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 2:22 am Post subject:

Welcome to the forums, abovocipher.

What exactly do you mean with "having trouble"? Do it show up sometymes, or never?

Do the drive show up in POST? And/or in BIOS?

I'm unfamiliar with the motherboard and its BIOS, but it should be covered in the manual on how to enter BIOS.

Wild Guess:
Some BIOS/motherboards have RAID settings. If a RAID partition is not defined the drives do not show up. In your case I would turn any SATA RAID off, since there is only one drive, after all.

Also Windows might require a driver for the RAID (or SATA chip to be recognized.

Less Wild Guess:
The drive is recognized by windows, but not set up.

Right-Click "This Computer" and chose "manage". In the console that opens up chose the Disk Manager and see if a number of dialog windows pop up allowing you to set up the drive. If not, see if the drive is shown in the right window already. You might have to right-click the drive and make a partition.

Good Luck, let us know how it goes!

Mods: If *I* where mod here I'd move this to OS Windows or Hardware.

/Akely

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:04 am Post subject: Reading the fine manual may help

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=562&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=

On some of these older motherboards, you must first enable the SATA RAID device in the BIOS, then set its mode to mimic IDE rather than RAID. I don't believe that this is one that requires you to go into the BIOS for the RAID controller and set the individual drive as a JBOD array. but some of them have required that. You will, of course, need the VIA driver for the version of Windows that you are using. Once the device shows up in Windows Disk Management, you'll need to format and install a volume for it to show up in Windows Explorer.

Stray Dog Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 5

thanks for the quick responses Very Happy

Ok, let me start from the beginning. I have 2 computers, one for storage, webpage browsing, downloading, etc.. and I have a gaming computer thats devoted to gaming and photoshop. I got a new motherboard for the storage comp cause the USB ports on the old mobo crapped out on me. I bought the 500GB HDD and hooked it up the my gaming comp, went into disk management and formatted it so it would show up. Then backed up my files from my storage comp on to that.

I put the original HDDs from the storage comp back and installed a fresh windows with the new mobo. Then went into the BIOS and made sure the SATA was enabled. The new mobo did not come with a driver cd so I went to MSI's website and downloaded them, the same link that justanengineer sent me. Still nothing when I tried connecting the 500GB SATA to it.

So wrapping this all up. The SATA drive doesnt show in the POST or BIOS(its a pretty standard BIOS from what Ive seen) and doesnt show up in disk management. I know its not the Drive thats the problem because it worked fine on my gaming comp. Im not sure how to set the SATA to mimic the IDE instead of RAID but maybe that will work.

Thanks again for the help.
jeff

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject:

Browse around the BIOS and see if you can find a place to enable the SATA RAID controller. It may have an option of acting as RAID or acting as IDE. The BIOS configuration section of the MSI manual is terrible.

I have had motherboards of that vintage that actually had a jumper on the board to enable the SATA, but I didn't see such a jumper on the one that you have.

If you hit TAB to enter the RAID setup, does the drive show as available there?

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject:

check to see if the bios is up to date. seen that happen.

Stray Dog Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 5

I went into the BIOS and to see if there was a RAID controller and couldnt find one. I also went into the RAID setup by pressing TAB, it also didnt show the harddrive as connected to it. on the motherboard its labled sata1 and sata2, its plugged into sata1. in the RAID setup it has 0 and 1. I checked the online manual and theres nothing about it really.

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject:

RAID setup is at the end of the manual. The chapter on configuring the BIOS is poorly written.

Stray Dog Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 5

my HDD is SATA-300 and the motherboard is 150, would that matter? I thought that it would just slow it down to that speed.

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:50 pm Post subject:

the hard drive should be backwards compatible... should... there's always the quirky controller that still won't like it, but I seriously doubt that's the case here. prolly just some stupid bios config issue or some random jumper not being set...

just had a thought... might check the hard drive jumper settings and see if you have to change the jumper for the 150 mode compatibility. There is that jumper on my seagate that I'm having to RMA. SMART is a wonderful feature. Plus, it convinces tech support immediately and no troubleshooting is needed.

still need a box though... but I should be able to make one once I get back to work... got some foam stashed there.

Stray Dog Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 5

ok so i got it working. i checked westerndigital's site bout jumper settings and also did a search on google bout SATA2 HDD on SATA1 mobos. puttings a jumper in the second spot from the left made it run in SATA1 mode, 3rd spot from the left made it run in a powersaver mode and the 4th from the left did nothing. i dont have ten posts otherwise id post the URL.
this is the hdd i have: Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, SATA-300
the jumper settings are probably only for WD im guessing. Thanks everyone for the help and ideas.
Jeff

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:56 am Post subject:

I went ahead and bypassed the minimum post url filter for you, that should help you get those customer service urls in there Smile

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:56 am Post subject:

fathertyme wrote:
I went ahead and bypassed the minimum post url filter for you, that should help you get those customer service urls in there

Awwwww...what a sweetie