Hi all. Thanks for taking time to read this.

I just finished putting together my new system last night (so excited). Everything went together fine, system POSTs and all. Specs are below.

MB: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
CPU: Intel E6750
RAM: 2x1GB Corsair XMS DDR2-800 (PC2-6400)
OS HDD: WD Raptor 36GB (model: wd360adfd)
OTHER HDD: WD 320GB SATA drive (model: wd3200aaks)
GPU: eVGA 8800GTX
DVD-ROM: ASUS DVD-E616A3T (SATA)
DVD Burner: Plextor PX-800
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610
CASE: Antec P180B
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

First of all, when I go into the BIOS, my 3 SATA devices are detected as IDE. I have them connected on the MB as follows (the DVD Burner is the only IDE device):
Device --> MB SATA port
OS HDD (raptor) --> SATAII0
OTHER HDD --> SATAII1
DVD-ROM --> SATAII2

In the BIOS, however, the devices are listed as follows:
IDE0 Master --> OS HDD
IDE0 Slave --> DVD-ROM
IDE1 Master --> OTHER HDD
IDE5 Master --> DVD Burner

Shouldn't the devices be detected as SATA, not IDE? Or do I just not understand entirely how it's supposed to work?

Secondly, at first I simply ignored my previous "problem" of SATA devices showing up as IDE and I tried to install Vista Home Premium. Everything was fine until I got to the screen asking where I wanted to install Vista. Both my HDDs showed up as options (Disks 0 and 1, both labelled as unallocated space) (side note: my 320GB HDD shows up as 298GB, I figure it's due to actual usable space, or is there a problem?). But when I try to install to the raptor (or the other HDD for that matter) I get an error, something about the HDD doesn't meet criteria as bootable device. Do I need to setup something different in BIOS or install SATA drivers? I thought one had to install drivers only if setting up RAID or using Gigabyte's SATA controller (purple ports on MB)?

I'm not doing RAID with my drives, I just want the OS on the raptor and I'll put everything else on the other HDD. I appreciate any help the gurus out there can offer.

1) A SATA is an modifyed IDE and detected as an IDE. The two are the same technology and the difference is the information in the cable is travelling in Serial (SATA) instead of Parallel (PATA) but both are ATA.

2) Me, I would would unplug all my other drives and keep only my Raptor and DVD. Try that and let me know if this is working.

lone,

Thanks for item 2. During my lunch break, I did just that and Vista is installing as we speak. Will update when I get home from work and see if it's 100% ok.

Great!

This is what I would have done. Do all Windows Update and when all done, reboot and check if system is stable. Then start adding one by one the HD and CD/DVD drive (reboot between each).

Do not register Vista until everything is installed and working, just in case that you change/remove something or reinstall Vista.

I would also check if there is any conflict or driver problem (My computer/Manage/Device Driver).

Also, could could do some benchmarking and system burning to verify stability.

Good luck!