Help getting new K8VSE DAW to find the SATA drives

[tommydee]

Hey,
Building an Allen Stein machine.
Relatively new to PCs, so it's probably an insane thing to do, but I'm having fun... despite the frustrations.

So here's my prob. I've finally got it all assembled. I power it on, it scans for IDE drives, but I have SATA drives on the SATA connectors on this board, and it can't find them.

I have one SATA drive plugged into the SATA 1 connector, the other plugged into the SATA 2 connector... any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Tom.

[JamesV]

First take a look at this thread. More detail on how to load proper SATA driver during the XP installation can also be found at K8V sticky post. Hope this helps.

[tommydee]

Thanks a tonne, 'cause this helps a tonne.

My brain is too dead to sort this issue out tonight, but I think what this is telling me is: I should disconnect the drives from the Via connectors, plug 'em into the Promise connectors, change the Promise in the BIOS from RAID to IDE, and save some drivers to a floppy... and this is where I get totally lost.

Further, I don't have a floppy drive -- I don't remember one being on the Allen Stein list of gear? I haven't even seen a 3.5 disk in about 2 years! Bizarre that I should need one now.

Any further tips/elucidation/ways around avoiding having to buy a floppy drive would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Tom.

[JamesV]

I use Promise, many are using the VIA controller. Performance difference I believe so far has been negligible. If you use Promise, you must change controller to IDE mode in BIOS and load SATA 378 driver after you press F6 during the intial XP installation. Otherwise VIA uses same SATA V220E driver in both modes, however not clear how to disable raid. If you do plan to overclock, that second link to K8V forum strongly cautions using the VIA controller has resulted in loss of drive. Hope this helps.

[tommydee]

If you use Promise, you must ... load SATA 378 driver after you press F6 during the intial XP installation.

to do this, however, i need a floppy drive, right?

my next question (remember I'm a PC newbie, so sorry for probably obvious questions) is: how do I get the SATA 378 drivers on the floppy?

I'm assuming I power-on with the ASUS CD in the CD drive, open it up (somehow), find the right driver folder, choose the makedisk.exe option, and then stick a floppy in the floppy drive (which I am yet to buy). Is this right?

Is there anyway to do this without having to get a floppy drive (which I'm assuming I'll never use again... or do PCs need such floppies from time to time?)

cheers, and thanks again for the help -- it's very much appreciated.

Tom.

[tommydee]

bump. (sorry... just really want to know if there's a way around this problem without having to buy a floppy drive and disk...)

[JamesV]

Yes you will need to find a friend or buy a drive and and create floppy using make a disk option. However, you will be able to find the most recent driver available at that second link I provided. Good luck.

[tommydee]

thanks so much for your help.

i need a bit more... sorry!

Here what driver do i download? the ATA driver for the promise fastrack? or the RAID driver?

Is it: 378raid_100137.zip
Or is it: 378ata_100104528.zip

(FYI: I already changed the BIOS so that the promise controller is IDE not RAID... so which driver??)

cheers,

tom.

[JamesV]

For Promise use the non-raid driver. For VIA use raid driver for both raid and non-raid applications. Press F6 during windows install and it will ask if you would like to install drive for SCSI or optional devices. Install driver there. Then it will ask to format NTSF once drive is found. You can also set up partitions at that point.

[dizzyzuma]

Tommy, this is a re-post from the other thread in case you missed it:

Quote:
and then make a floppy for the right drivers for installing XP... but is there a way around this last step?
T.



I know exactly what you are going through. I just read an article in Maximum PC magazine that touched on that very subject. I remember back in the day I had to do the very same thing when I was using the special Ultra 66 controller on my Abit motherboard. It was very inconvenient especially when I tried to set up a dual-boot with Linux but that's another story...To answer your question T., I don't think there is a way around it for you. You didn't include specifics but generally speaking if your OS installation CD (in this case WinXP) does NOT include the driver for your Promise controller then you are S.O.L.

With some research you may be able to make a bootable CD-Rom of the Promise controller drivers. Have you checked the Promise website or your motherboard's website for such a utility? Maybe you could just get a SATA to IDE adapter and hook up your system drive to the onboard IDE and keep your audio drive on the other SATA controller?

,
Zuma

P.S. In looking at the other responses on this thread I say just bite the bullet and get a floppy! I forget about the "F6 option" that James mentioned. I am just not so sure you could make things work even if you did have a bootable CD for your controller.