Help --> Mobo + Sata

[Belvedere]

Hi,

i just bought an a7n8x deluxe mobo for the serial ata that was available on it. It appears that it is more difficult than i thought to bring those sata devices to work. I explain :

i got that :

AMD 2500+ Barton
1.5gb Ram Dual
a7n8x deluxe ( sata 150 )
Western Digital 120gb
Maxtor 30gb
2 Dvd drives
graphic cards, and everything else that doesnt matter at all.

So, i installed RAID Controller from Microsoft with autodetection. Silicon Image is updated. My bios is updated to v.1008. Also, my new samsung 250 gb SATA 300 ( with the lil things to switch it 150 plugged in ) is plugged, detected but not working as hdd. So my real problem as you might know, is that my sata is not working... so my new hdd cant work.

i've tried :
my maxtor alone with samsung with jumper
my Western digital alone with samsung with jumper
samsung alone with jumper for 150
samsung alone without jumper
maxtor with samsung without jumper
western digital without jumper.

i also tried to installed windows only with the samsung connected, nothing else. Can't detect an operative hdd, so can't install. Windows cd tried to install raid controller and everything, nothings working.

Oh yeah, and my new asus drivers are on.

Another thing is that i got no floppy working. My floppy drive is broken, and i can't use it, and referring to my ASUS SATA installation's read me, i need one to install something to make those things working. Is there a way to install everything without that ?

Maybe it's easy to figure out for some of you, but i tried everything and i really need your help .

Thx for all and to all !

 

[mailpup]

To me it would be simplest to buy a new floppy drive for $6-$8 (okay, plus shipping and maybe tax).

 

[Tedster]

ALWAYS have a floppy drive for BIOS and troubleshooting procedures. ALL PCs use this leftover architecture from the early days of computing.

 

[Tarkus]

Yep, you need a floppy with the SATA drivers to install when installing XP. when it says hit F6 to install SCSI drives hit F6. eventually it will ask you to insert the floppy and hit Enter.

 

[deathrail]

Yea they should really just still include the floppy in all the recent machines .... I just got a pre built desktop, 3.06 ghz, 1 gb of ram, DVD burner and a 250 gig hard drive..... but no floopy drive.

 

[venger417]

make sure that sata is enabled in the bios also and set to AHCI before you install windows and install the sata ahci drivers from the floppy (once you get a working one)