Mainboard not recognizing sata

[gnelsen]

Hello, I am upgrading a system to Windows 7. I have upgraded the bios on the Mobo (MIS K8T Neo2FIR VIA 8237)to Ver 9.x. The HD is a new 500g SATA II so I am using a SATA PCI Controller card. Bios does not see the HD (not sure if I have the correct settings). When I start Win 7 loading it sees the HD but needs the SATA/Raid drivers. I downloaded the drivers that VIA (/drvdsk files) has for Windows 7 but after attempting to install them when asked, win 7 says that the system either does not support the HD or the bios needs to have the HD controller turned on. I used the controller card because I do not believe that the onboard SATA can recognize a SATA II HD only SATA I. I am confident that my setup should work, but I probably have a incorrect setting in the bios or need additional drivers. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[evongugg]

Put a jumper on the SATA II disk to limit it to SATA I.
It might not be necessary though.
See the top of the hard disk or the manufacturer's site.
Connect it directly to the motherboard.

 

[Paperdoc]

I fully support evongugg's recommendation. Do not use the PCI add-on card for your main SATA connection, especially to the boot drive. Limit the new drive to original SATA speed (look on maker's website for details) and connect it to a mobo port. In fact, no SATA II HDD actually exceeds the data transfer rate of the older original SATA specs, anyway, so the "limit" does not matter at all!

When you do this, set the SATA port's mode to AHCI if possible. Win 7 fully supports ACHI devices and should NOT require any additional drivers loaded as part of the Install process. (If you're trying to follow the mobo manual's procedure for loading drivers at the start of the Install process, that WAS necessary with Win XP, but not necessary with Vista or Win 7.) THEN load Win 7 to this HDD - it should go smoothly.

If you plan to keep that extra controller in the PCI slot and use it for additional (non-boot) drives, you may need to install a driver for the controller board into Win 7 AFTER it is installed. But as long as you are not booting from it, you should not need to do this as a first step of the Install process itself.

 

[gnelsen]

Found the jumper setting on the HD website to make it backwards compatible. Should have done it off the bat, rather than adding more issues. Will post tomorrow and let know if it works. Thanks for the great info.

 

[gnelsen]

Problem solved by jumper to sata I, thanks for all the help.