GA-7N400 Pro, Can't boot from cd to install XP on new SATA drive

Hookem

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Mar 30, 2009
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18,510
Hi,

Really can't figure out what's going on here. Have seen some others with similar problems, but they all were a little different that didn't quite solve my problem.

I've had this computer for a while, and my old IDE hard drive crashed. I decided to replace it with a SATA drive. Before correctly setting the BIOS I tried to boot from cd. It booted without any problem, but after Windows went through the motions it said it couldn't find any hard drives.

So then I went through the BIOS and updated the settings to reflect the new SATA drive. The only peripherals connected at this point were an IDE CD drive attached to the the secondary master, and the new drive itself, a 1 Tb Maxtor. I had checked to make sure the drive had the proper 150 speed jumper setting.

The problem is that with HW SATA enabled, it never looks to the CD to boot. It checks the IDE drives, finds the CD drive and then goes off to find the SATA drives. It correctly recognizes the Maxtor drive, and then will sit there, forever. I let it sit for an hour thinking maybe it was doing something. Apparently it wasn't.

I've read the procedure to install Windows XP and installing SCSI drives later in the process, but I assume that won't work if I don't have the BIOS settings for the SATA drive enabled. But unless I turn them off, it won't boot from the CD. If I load the drivers from floppy with this process will it automatically recognize the device even if the BIOS settings aren't enabled?

I've played around with all manner of boot sequences. I've tried having the SATA drive listed, and at one point filled all three slots with the cd drive to see if that might help. No difference. I tried different settings of RAID, toggling off and on the different settings with no success.

Anybody know how to fix this?

Thanks
 

Hookem

Distinguished
Mar 30, 2009
2
0
18,510
So apparently the controller on the mother board is just too old to handle a generation 2 SATA hard drive of this size, even throttling the bandwidth down to 150 on the hard drive by using the correct jumper settings. The only solution is the buy a SATA PCI controller card to get this combo to work.

Always more stuff to buy. I thought I could just buy a replacement hard drive. I guess it's hardly ever that simple...