Heeeeelp!

[LostMyMind]

Fun stuff, eh?

[Kogarashi]

Oh, loads. /sarcasm

This is what I get for having an older motherboard. ::sigh::

[technical.angel]

Now if I can get Windows Setup to see it too....

Welcome to where I crashed and burned. No matter what I did, I could NOT get Windows setup to recognize my HD. If you can find the SATA drivers Windows wants, then it'll work. If not, Vista.

Good luck.

[Kogarashi]

Well, that's one step the ASUS forums were helpful with. I've got the latest driver pack for my motherboard, and it has a little program on it for turning a floppy into a driver floppy for just this purpose.

And it finally worked. Mostly. The computer appeared to misplace the drive briefly, so I turned everything off and reseated the cables, then booted back up. Lucky me, there's the drive again, and this time Windows Setup recognized it because it took me to the License Agreement rather than complaining of no drive. I got part of the drive partitioned and started setting things up, and went to do something else I needed to do. Came back just in time to see the computer restarting (part of Setup, I guess?), only now it's asking to set up Windows again and asking for drivers again and not seeing the drive again. ::sigh::

If this continues, I'm contacting WD to see if they have tips.

[vman]

I'll give you a warning, as someone who just went from IDE to SATA, if XP refuses to recognize your SATA harddrive during format, your only option is to go to Vista. XP apparently doesn't have native SATA support, and I couldn't find drivers to load while formatting the HD.

Really?
Wow. I didn't know that. It strikes me as odd, because SATA drives were out before Vista, but who knows.

EDIT -- Nevermind about the rest of it...that'll teach me to not read the entire thread before commenting.

EDIT2 -- Actually...
You probably already know this, but if you're mixing serial drives and sata drives, the serial drive NEEDS to be using a particular part of the ribbon, or it'll cause problems.
I can't remember how it needs to be setup, but it is specific...

[Kogarashi]

::flop::

Well, I did get it to go past the license agreement a couple of times. But after that first fluke, it's been locking up on "Enabling in viasraid" or some junk. It'll eventually get past that to where I can choose which partition to install on, if any, but then locks up again and restarts for one reason or another.

I wonder what decent motherboards I can get without having to spend oodles of money....

Thanks for the input, vman. I'm working with just the SATA right now, and will worry about the IDE drives when the time comes. The only "serial" drive is the SATA itself; the other two drives are parallel ATA, if memory serves. Use the plain ol' ribbon cables and IDE ports on the mobo.

[Eric the Grey]

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you get another IDE drive? From what I've read, you're adding a level of complexity to your whole system by trying to force XP onto a drive it isn't natively capable of using.

As far as motherboards goes, I would think that if yours supports the SATA drive, it can't be all that old.

As far as combining SATA and IDE drives, I have no problems on my current box. I have 2 SATA's and 2 IDE hard drives, plus my DVD RW and not one issue.



Eric the Grey

[Kogarashi]

This drive was the better deal on NewEgg, and my motherboard specs said they supported SATA, so I didn't realize there would be this much of an issue. ::sigh::

My board was purchased in 2004, and I've seen dates as early as 2003 for when these things were made. It doesn't recognize SATA II, which is why I needed to jumper the drive.

Eh, if all else fails, I may just end up getting a newer motherboard (and a newer power supply). I've been itching to get them anyway, since some of the on-board stuff on my current one is twitchy.