Adding SATA Storage to an IDE Boot System

[Mookus]

Howdy Folks!

I've recently cobbled together a machine from some friends' spare parts - it's an Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, currently booting Win XP off of a WD IDE drive (about 100gb or so).

I also have a pair of Seagate SATA drives that I would like to add in to the mix purely as data storage. No fancy RAID# options or anything, just extra room. Regardless of which SATA controller I plug them into on the mobo, though, Windows either won't boot, or the drives don't show in Explorer. In the BIOS, SATA controller is set to 'Basic' (I believe I read that if I set it to 'AHCI', the machine will likely Blue Screen; the only other option there is RAID, but that doesn't sound like what I want).

I take it this isn't going to be as simple as just "plug and go"? I'm *really* hoping there's some way I can get these drives seen without having to reinstall Windows for the gajillionth time!

 

[Jonmor68]

The SATA drive is probably installing itself as first hdd boot drive, which is why Windows won't boot.
Go into bios and set your boot drive as first boot device.
If they are not showing in explorer then they probably have no partitions created, use disk mamagment to create a partition and format.
Another thing is that XP needs at least service pack one to be installed in order to see SATA drives.

 

[MRFS]

good advice above!

> I'm *really* hoping there's some way I can get these drives seen without having to reinstall Windows for the gajillionth time!


(Yes, there is: first thing, Telex Commander Oingo Boingo Botswana Soetoro
to receive your $1.000.000,00 AUD from Ougadougou Burkina Faso!
Then, you can afford to pay us for this valuable advice

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Also, make sure you have installed the motherboard's chipset drivers;
if you don't have the original ASUS Support CD for that motherboard,
you can probably download that software from the ASUS website.

Once the chipset drivers are installed correctly, I would also
recommend that you spend the afternoon to install all
available Windows Updates. If your copy of Windows is
really out-of-date, you may need to do several iterations
of Windows Updates, because they tend to "cascade".

It's also a good idea to do a drive image of C: before
doing any of these changes, so you can roll back
in the event of any serious failures.


Good luck!


MRFS

 

[MRFS]

p.s. Newegg's specs say you have the ICH7R I/O controller hub:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=n82e16813131025

... not terribly obsolete.


Intel has released new software for their ICHxR I/O controller hubs:
Google "Rapid Storage Technology" +"9.6" e.g.:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18859&lang=eng


MRFS

 

[Mookus]

Sorry for the delay, I've been (ugh) away from a computer for days and days.

Anyhoo, the machine is running XP SP3, and the IDE boot drive is set to as the second boot option (behind the optical drive), so that's all good!

But if I'm reading this page correctly ...

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022239.htm

... then there's no way to install the Rapid Storage Technology driver without reinstalling XP altogether (my answers to their questions are "1. Yes 2. No 3. No 4. No"). I suppose it's possible I'll have the energy to do that again *some* time, to take advantage of those two SATA drives, but at the moment - I just don't. So, I'll live with my tiny storage capacity until I have time to fiddle and reinstall.

Thanks for the replies though!