Installing WinXP-Home on Seagate SATA Drive

Associate
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
42
Hi All,

My mate has just built his new computer, but we are having problems installing windows. I've seen this problem around before, but nobody seems to have offered a solution that has worked for us.

CPU: AMD Athlon64 3700+
Motherboard: Abit AV8-3rd Eye
Hard Drives: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA
(RAM: 1GB Crucial PC3200)
Note: We don't want to install RAID or the like.

Basically, I boot to the Windows XP Home Installation CD and commence the installing of windows after its loaded all its stuff. On the first step (when you get the option to install windows, or press 'r' to load recovery console) I press enter, and immediately get a message saying that Windows Detected No hard Drives on this system.

The drives are definately running (I can feel them whirring) and I booted to a Seagate drive tool on a floppy and managed to create partitions, etc. So as far as I know, both drives are fine.
I've read around that by pressing F6 when prompted in the WinXP install, you later get the option to load SATA/SCSI drivers, which we tried. I put in the SATA drivers floppy (as provided with the motherboard) and loaded 2 new drivers when it gave me the opportunity. However, later Windows still detected no hard drives.

Please help :)

Thanks in advance.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Oct 2005
Posts
4,042
You usually need to install the nessasery drivers from a floppy disk that you get with your mobo. I got this problem and found that I had to do that, the mobo booklet should state that also.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
42
Hi again guys,

I've just tried with a Windows XP Professional SP2 disc. However, it still dected neither of the two hard drives.

What should I do?

- I've tried only plugging in one HDD
- I've tried using the floppy provided with the motherboard

Should I clear the CMOS?
Should I try disabling the onboard SATA RAID ROM (in BIOS) ?

Help would be most appreciated! :D
 
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