HEEELP SATA instalation.

I have a NF4K8AB Foxcon motherboard. I have a WD3200JD SATA HDD with 320 GB. Windows doesnt seem to recognizze it, but the BIOS does. It already has information inside it, because it is taken from another computer. This version of Windows is Windows XP pro, and is a recent iunstallation. Only the drivers of the mainboard that comes with the CD have been installed. I think I need the SATA drivers righht???

If this is so, PLIS help me!! I dont know what to do, since I have 210 GB of info in this disk. the OS is in another normal IDE HDD.

THANK!!!!

CcXD

As I understand it you are adding a SATA drive to a system that currently boots off of PATA drive and windows XP Pro does not recognize it.

Either

1) You need to have the right SATA drivers installed in windows. If the SATA ports are provided by the chipset you need to install the correct drivers for your motherboard. If they are provided by an addon controller like a Silicon Image 3112 or 3114 then you need to find out what controller you have and install the right drivers for it.

2) You are running a pre SP1a copy of Windows which only recognizes partitions up to 127GB.

3) You mistakenly changed the jumper settings on a SATA drive thinking that they need to be set to master/slave/cable select like a PATA drive.

4) Something is wrong with the drive, the SATA cable or the power cable. Test the drive with the manufacturer's utility from either their website or off of the latest version of ultimatebootcd.

Sorry forgot to add the word "Either".

Those are the three big reasons for problems.

Ok i managed to get Windows recognize 127 GB of the drive... wich I think its good since now I think Im halve way in. Now, I dont have the SP1 or 2, so I think that might be the problem, I didn't know I needed it.

I havent changed any jumnpers, it came w/no jumpers, and I know all SATA are masters . The motherboard came only w/a CD, but in the web page it said it comes w/a SATA diskete, So i have no drivers for the SATA... but Windows already recognizes 127 GB of it... so I think I no longer need those drivers right??

This drive has aout 210GB of info in it... inside windows, it recognizes the drive as a 127 GB drive, but with used space 0%. Is the information lost? or would I be able to look it up again after I installed SP2??


PAT said:
"You don't need sata drivers, you need to disable RAID for thr nvidia controller. If it is disabled, then maybe the dis is a dynamic one, and you'll have to go in disk management to correct the thing. "

where do I disable this? in the BIOS? I alread tried the disk management,... but it kept birnging an "internal error has occured" message.

RAID is disabled from BIOS, but you absolutly need SP1 or 2 to have acces to drives larger than 137 gigs..

If you didn,t mess up too much with the drive, then the info should still (hopefully) be there

Your problem is Micro$oft dodgy OS

SP2 will fix this. The original XP is full of bugs and only sees 137gb.

Pretty dangerous surfing the net without the service packs. SP2 now before you get a terminally infected useless box - Think you have trouble now? You could be headed for real trouble.

SP2 will feel like a new PC - smoother and more stable - infinately better security & harder to hack. Once done use windows update. There is currently about 90MB of security patches for SP2.

HEY THIS IS ME AGAIN!!

Plis plis help! I tried already a thousand times and stil cant get it to work. I installl SP2 on windows, installed mainboard drivers and use the diskette that I diownloaded from the Western Digital homepage and I still can't get the drive to work at full Cap. It only shows 127 GB. On the Harware administrator It says its ok and in the disk manager it detects the whole 320 GB!!!

I deactivated the RAID thing on the BIOS and set the diskettet during isntalation w/F6 for Windows support for WD SATA drive for Win XP,, and STILL WONT SHOW THE WHOLE 320 GB!!!! WHY WHY!!?? I feel like crying!!!!


Please please help meee!!!

If the partition is already created a 127 gigs, then yes, it will give you only that, but disk manager will allow to delete the existing partition and create a new one, or create new partition in the unpartitionned space....

RAID is not an option with single drive..take that out of your mind for once..

As I understand it

Neither PC is booting from the 320 GB SATA drive.

PC 1 sees one 320 GB partition along with 210 GB of your data.

PC 2 sees only a 127 GB partion with no data.

PC 2 is running Windows XP SP2.

OK, please forgive me if I missinterpreted but

1) The drivers are for the SATA controller NOT the hard drive. Hard drives do not need drivers.

Go to the support page for your motherboard. Download the latest chipset drivers and the drivers for your SATA controller (if it is not included with the chipset drivers). You may also want to updgrade your motherboard to the latest BIOS just in case.


2) There are two different types of controller drivers.

One type goes on a floppy and is used when you need to install Windows XP to a drive on a controller that XP doesn't automatically support. That is when you press F6 .....

The other type doesn't come on a floppy and isn't loaded durring XP installation. Its just a regular driver that you install after windows XP is installed.

3) Is this your motherboard?
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/prod [...] NF4K8AB-RS

If it is then all you have are NF4 Chipset SATA ports which means you don't need to install any additional controller drivers.

You just need to
1) Make sure you are running Windows XP SP2
2) Download and install the latest NF4 Drivers
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforc [...] 2_x16_6.85

Then go to computer management -> Storage - > Disk Management and look at your 320 GB drive.

If you see one big 300 or so GB partion then you are set.

If you see one 127 GB partition and no unpartitioned space then something is wrong and I have no clue what.

if you see one 127 GB partition followed by a large amount of unpartition space, then what probably happend is that at some point you repartitioned and possibly reformatted the drive, which is bad.

Fortunately files are never gone until another files is written to the same place on the disk.

You can still try to recover some of your 210 GB of lost data using recovery tools such as GetDataBack for NTFS or Final Data.

Both programs ignore the files system and scan for files that used to be on the drive.

Once files are found they can then be restored to a 2nd drive.

The more changes you make to the drive before you attempt recovery the more files you overwrite and therfore permanently erase.

Hopes some of this helps and good luck.