New HDD not recognized

[CSULB71]

Brand new WD800JD (80 GB) SATA II hard drive. Abit NF-7S mobo with SATA I interface, enabled.
1st attempt: Installed with SATA II data cable, Molex power connector, no jumper (like from factory). Not recognized by Win 98SE startup floppy/FDISK command. or WD "Data Lifeguard Tools" utility.
2nd attempt: Same as above, but added jumper on pins 5 & 6 to enable 150 Mb's/sec (SATA I). Still not recognized by FDISK or Data Lifeguard Tools.
3rd attempt: same config as #2, but ran "SeaTools" Diagnostic from a floppy, and that did identify the drive correctly! And I was able to run the short basic test, and it passed.
4th attempt: same as #2 -- not recognized.
Is the hard drive bad? Am I doing something wrong in the installation?
Thanks.

[aedipuss]

is this a boot drive or an additional drive? you may have to install the sata drivers before windows will use it.

[Chris K]

Does the HD showup in the bios display when you startup your computer?

I had problems with a WD HD on W2K. Wasn't able to partition it in W2K because it didn't see it although it was reported normally at startup by the mb bios.
Finally partitioned and formatted (NTFS) it in WXP but got a lot of problems thereafter when I used it with W2K.
The W2K formatting is not the same as for WXP. It's upwards compatible but not downwards (should have known). After I reformatted in W2K the problems were solved.

[jagabo]

Win98 and Duron 700? That's pretty old and probably the source of your problems -- no BIOS support for the SATA controller.

3rd attempt: same config as #2, but ran "SeaTools" Diagnostic from a floppy, and that did identify the drive correctly! And I was able to run the short basic test, and it passed.

From a bootable floppy made by SeaTools? The floppy probabaly has drivers on it that you will need to use any other tools. Copy other tools to that floppy, or the drivers and config.sys and autoexec.bat to another bootable floppy with the tools. Or you might try booting the SeaTools floppy, then switching to the tools floppy and running the tools there.

[aedipuss]

if you are really using win98 you are out of luck. sata drives probably will not work. there aren't any drivers. your m.b. doesn't support win98 sata.

Sil3112 Sil3114 Intel VIA Installation Disk

Released Date: 2004-09-01
Description:

1. For Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP
2. Revision v1.33

[CSULB71]

Sorry, I haven't updated my profile since I insatalled a new mobo and AMD Athlon XP 2200+ CPU a year ago.
Windows has nothing to do with this issue -- the drive is not recognized by two different DOS app's, loaded from the floppy drive upon bootup. I had only the new drive installed, intending to partition it as boot drive C and data drive D. Apparently SATA drives do not show up in the BIOS display on startup -- only IDE drives do that (when they're hooked up). A month ago I installed a used Maxtor SATA I drive as the main drive and was able to partition, format, and later clone my C drive (running Win 98SE with the SATA drivers that came with the new mobo) onto it, and it didn't show up in the BIOS display on startup, either. It worked OK for a few days, but it turned out to be bad for other reasons, and now I'm trying again with a new one.

jagabo: Yes, it is Seagate's utility downloaded from their website, and made into a bootable floppy disk per the instructions. But I'm not following what you are saying about drivers and other tools -- the Seatools utility works fine as it is, and I have used it to check other HDD's.
Win's FDISK utility (from a bootable floppy) and WD's Data Lifeguard Tools (from a bootable floppy) both normally will perform the partitioning IF the hard drive is recognized, which in this case, it isn't.
Again, Windows is not in the equation.

[Chris K]

Again, Windows is not in the equation.

Not Windows but WD vs. older Windows versions. I have several brands HD's and had the mentioned W2K problem with a WD HD and not with a Maxtor. Didn't know SATA drives don't show up at startup.

EDIT: You're right. You seems to have the problem already with dos floppys.

[CSULB71]

I'm saying Windows is not part of this problem because Windows hasn't been loaded. This is two DOS utilities not recognizing the unformatted (new) hard drive. However, if I can get it partitioned and formatted, I'll be doing a fresh install of Win XP/SP2.

[CSULB71]

Chris K wrote:
You seem to have the problem already with dos floppys.

Si, senior, un problemo con dos floppys.

[jagabo]

DOS is very dumb. It doesn't talk to much of anything other than standard IDE drives and the dispaly without device drivers.

On the boot disk you made with SeaTools are probably a CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and a driver file for the SATA controller. When you boot that floppy the driver is loaded automatically so the SeaTools program works properly. When you boot some other floppy disk the SATA driver is missing so no DOS programs can see the SATA drive.

If you need to run DOS tools (SYS, FDISK, FORMAT, etc) on another floppy you will need to copy the device driver from the SeaTools floppy and then modify the CONFIG.SYS and maybe AUTOEXEC.BAT to make sure the device driver is loaded when that floppy boots. Or you can try booting from the SeaTools floppy, exiting any programs that start automatically, then swap to a floppy that has the other programs you want to run.

Some of this is based on the assumption that your motherboard doesn't have integrated SATA ports (like the old computer in your profile) and Win98 (which boots DOS before starting windows -- even if Microsoft tried hard to hide it).

You may also need to enable the SATA controller and drives in the BIOS. And/or set the boot priority to make the SATA drives appear before the PATA drives. Maybe even disable the PATA controller.

[aedipuss]

to install winXP on a sata drive DOS isn't required. XP will format the drive during the install if needed. boot the XP os disc and when it asks if scsi drivers are required press the key to answer yes, (f6 maybe) anyway at that point you can install the sata drivers from the motherboard manufacturer and the drive will be usable to install XP on. make sure to have the driver on a floppy otherwise you won't have anyway to install it.

[Bjs]

This problem all over the place with people wanting to keep the older operating systems, and think they can run older programs and games in what they perceive as being "native" host os.

They fail to understand that while the os might be installable, once its all up and running, they run into issues with the lack of driver support for older operating systems.

If the bios sata dose not support the function from the bootable device point of view, and you still wish to integrate a sata unit to host the aging os, then your simplest method would be to purchase a sata to ide converter.

example shown: about 3/4 down page

http://www.megapc.com.au/category_list.php?ct=Cables_and_Adaptors&sub_cat_id=39

Beyond this, you'll look at a sata pci controller from secondary source with support for win98se

[CSULB71]

jagabo: I see what you are saying now. The SeaTools floppy does have the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files on it plus some others, one of which must be a SATA driver. That explains why the Win 98SE stardup floppy (FDISK utility) didn't see the hard drive, but why didn't WD's Data Lifeguard Tools floppy see it? The tutorial includes how to install a SATA drive, so I'd assume there would be a SATA driver included on the floppy. My current mobo (I changed my profile to reflect the current system config. last night) has integrated SATA I ports, and they are enabled in BIOS, as stated in my OP. However, I'll need to check the boot order of the drives -- I think I neglected to change it to read the SATA drive before the IDE ones. I hope it's that simple. I'll come back on in about an hour.

[CSULB71]

And/or set the boot priority to make the SATA drives appear before the PATA drives...

Good news -- your suggestion helped solve the riddle! I did forget to reset the BIOS to boot from SATA instead of HDD-0 . But, that wasn't all it took -- even tho the SATA controller was "enabled" in BIOS, the PC still didn't see the hard drive. So, back into BIOS, I remembered there's another entry below the SATA Controller entry that says "SATA RAID ROM" that was set to Disable. I had left it that way because I'm not going to use RAID. But, after changing that one to "enabled" (and remembering that's what I had done a month ago when I installed the used Maxtor SATA drive), the new drive was recognized (and by dumb ol' DOS FDISK, no less)! I let FDISK get to the part in the format process where it asks if I want to creat a partition, and backed out satisfied things were going to work OK. So, a thousand thanks!

aedipuss: Thanks for the info about XP being able to format the new drive during the install process; I wasn't sure about that. Do I still need to partion the drive with FDISK or WD Data Lifeguard Tools, or will XP do that also? If I do need to use FDISK/DLT to partition, should I just go ahead and format the partitions with the same tool, and have a drive all properly set up to install XP on?

Bjs: I don't want to keep my old OS any longer -- that's why I've upgraded to a newer mobo that supports SATA, a new SATA hard drive, and will be installing XP/SP2.

[aedipuss]

no fdisk or partitioning required before installing the os. you get to choose quick format or full format during the install, if nothing has ever been written to the drive quick is fine, otherwise you should take the extra time for a full format.

[CSULB71]

But, I DO want to partition the drive, as I said in the thread. When I asked: "Do I still need to partion the drive with FDISK or WD Data Lifeguard Tools, or will XP do that also?", I meant the question to be whether I can use XP to do the partitioning or did I need to use FDISK/DLT for that. Also, does a full format check the disk for bad sectors, and a quick one doesn't? Thanks again.

[budz]

You can just have XP do the partitioning for you. There's no need to use FDISK. If you want just do the full format when asked, it won't hurt but will take a little more time is all.

[jagabo]

XP will let you specify how much of the drive you want the boot partition to use. Once it's installed you can set up the other partition(s).

[CSULB71]

Great, then I'll just use XP to partition and format before the install. Thanks for the help/advice.