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XP won't recognize SATA Drive or Drivers

Discussion in 'Device Drivers' started by Tiduslives, Jul 6, 2009.

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  1. Tiduslives Newcomer, in training

    So this is the break down of my problem. Saturday morning I got a blue screen of death, I tried to reboot and Windows got hung on the XP logo repeatedly. It wouldn't boot in safe mode or Last Known Good. So then I tried to repair Windows with the disk with no luck. I decided to reinstall Windows onto the drive. This didn't fix anything, my system still got hung on the XP logo, safe mode, Last Known Good etc. I thought it might be the drive having some corrupted sectors, so I went out to the store and bought a new WD 500GB SATA drive. Knowing XP nor my Mobo supports SATA from the factory I have the controller drivers on my floppy. But here's my current problem. I installed the drive and Windows won't recognize the drive with or without the drivers being loaded. I've done some research and haven't found a good solution for me. One site said to put a jumper between pin 5 and 6 to run the drive as SATA I. This hasn't worked either. Any help is much appreciated. I'd like to see if anyone has any ideas before I exchange this drive today.

    On a side note. I had a SATA drive in it before, loading the driver worked when I installed that a long time ago.

    CPU Specs
    Asus A7V600 Mobo
    AMD 2.2 GHz Processor
    2GB Ram
    Tiduslives, Jul 6, 2009
    #1

  2. raybay TechSpot Addict

    What cables are you using? There are so many bad SATA cables lately?
    Since you are using a board with 2 SATA ports that apparently should be supported from the factory, please tell us more. What method did you use to install those controller drivers... do you have a floppy drive installed on that computer.
    I would take a close look at your BIOS... because there must be a setting error someplace.
    raybay, Jul 6, 2009
    #2

  3. Tiduslives Newcomer, in training

    They are just SATA cables, I don't know of any other kind. It's not hooked up legacy style if that's what you mean. I had a SATA drive connected to those cables until I just replaced it. I downloaded the SATA/Raid drivers from Asus and made a floppy install disk. I haven't changed anything in the BIOS from before either. Asus guy says that it's because the drive is so big. The board can't handle the size.
    Tiduslives, Jul 6, 2009
    #3

  4. raybay TechSpot Addict

    We see a LOT of defective or poorly working SATA cables... if yours were low cost or from a suspect vendor, consider testing with others.
    raybay, Jul 6, 2009
    #4

  5. Rick TechSpot Staff

    It's anecdotal, but I've serviced thousands of computers that use SATA and I've yet to see one bad cable... It's a stretch, but there might be some other (more likely) things to check.

    You have an older board that supports the original SATA standard. Drives these days use a newer version that is backwards compatible: But, occasionally there are issues. For this reason, manufacturers add jumpers to work around these problems.

    Maybe you'll have luck with the items I highlighted. The PDF has diagrams you can follow. Try enabling spread spectrum (reduces interference which is an issue with some new SATA drives on older SATA controllers) first. If that doesn't work, try *also* enabling SATA 150 compatibility along with SSC.

    http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf
    Rick, Jul 6, 2009
    #5

  6. Tiduslives Newcomer, in training

    Thanks for your reply Rick, but in my original post I had stated that I had tried installing it with a jumper between pin 5 and 6 to revert it to SATA I.
    Tiduslives, Jul 6, 2009
    #6

  7. Rick TechSpot Staff

    Yes, but how about pins 1-2?
    Rick, Jul 6, 2009
    #7

  8. Tiduslives Newcomer, in training

    No I haven't tried that. Since I don't really understand what SSC mode is. After I'm done typing this I'll google it. I talked to a rep at Asus and explained the problem, after we talked a little bit he's pretty sure the southbridge is dying.
    Tiduslives, Jul 6, 2009
    #8

  9. Rick TechSpot Staff

    You haven't anything to lose, so it is worth a shot. :)

    Spread spectrum modulation (clocking) reduces signal interference, such as that possibly caused by PCI cards, power supplies etc.. SATA - like most other high frequency electronic devices - is susceptible to interference.
    If your first hard drive *is* bad, then your second hard drive may not be working merely due to an incompatibility which spread spectrum modulation can solve. This wouldn't be the first hard drive / board combination I've seen to have this problem.

    A bad southbridge could certainly cause this too.. It may even be more likely, since your first hard drive failure may have not been a drive failure at all. If that's the case, hopefully you can get it replaced if the board is under warranty. :)
    Rick, Jul 7, 2009
    #9
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