sata hd

[strandville]

Hi all I have a sata hd 160gb, my mb supports sata, how do I install this hd I know if it was a clean install I would hit f6 during the instal to load drivers, but what if as in my case xp is already installed and I want to use the sata as a secondary drive ? how do I install sata drivers, they are on a floppy when I connect the drive bios recognises it but the pc will not boot.

[strandville]

Now when I try to boot my pc with sata hd connected I recieve the following: <windows>\system32\hal.dll is missing, I have tried booting from the cd to run the recovery console but when it starts up , goes to checking system hardware config it freezes on a black screen....any ideas are most welcome ;)

[Mr Snatcher]

If I am reading this right, drivers are on the mobo cd. Disconnect the sata drive. If you go in device manager and there are exclaimation or questions marks thats probably why xp doesnt know sata/scsi are there. Secondly make sure in your bios the sata drive isnt in the boot sequence but is enabled. Sounds like its pointing the sata drive to boot, thats why your getting the error. What is your mobo make and model?

[strandville]

the mobo is duramax aa8,socket I agree with your assesment that its pointing to sata but in boot sequence sats is set to boot last, 1st boot eide drive, second boot eide drive 3rd boot bootable card , then sata...how would i take the sata out of the sequence but keep it enabled? thanks for the reply

[Mr Snatcher]

Just leave the last boot device unavailable or disabled. Just becuase it isnt in the boot sequence doesnt mean its disabled. The easiest way to do this is to connect the drive to sata 3 or 4 (raid) make sure the drivers are installed. Go into Disk Management and format the drive. It will not show up in my computer until the disk is properly partitioned (dynamic or basic disk)

[strandville]

Hi Mr Snatcher thanks for the replies!!!! even ythough I am tearing my hair out...down to the last few strands now.:( anyway the sata drive is already formatted and has partitions on it there is info on there I would like to retrieve, initially my machine was working if a little erratic , but working nonetheless....anyway after numerous problems I decided to reformat the pc, I couldn't format with the sata drive connected so I disconnected it and went ahead with the formatting, loading on the drivers during the fresh install, when I connected the sata to the pc again I could see it in the bios but the pc wouldn't boot kept giving me errorsmissing dll. files take sata off and away it goes boots fine :( it's 160gb hd one that I really would lke connected to my pc but i'm at my wits end with it....

[strandville]

Still not sorted looks like im going to have to live with losing 160gb hd space :(

[Mr Snatcher]

Sorry, forgot about this..

Anyways, Lets start from the top. All your drivers and apps are loaded in from the mobo cd correct?

There are 4 sata connections. 3 and 4 are for raid, 1 and 2 are just stand alones. Your EIDE hard drive is set to master? and is the first boot device in bios as HD00?

I havent had a abit board in quite sometime, so I dont remember the bios setup in there. So from memory, the first 5 options on the left side of the screen in bios are softmenu or guru, Standard cmos, advanced bios, advanced chipset and intergrated peripherals. Go through all of them and make sure that sata is enabled including raid features, but not bootable....which that option is probably in softmenu.

Sorry I am at work and have a dell and cant go through a similar bios to make sure.

Make sure the connections are secured including the power to the drive. Hopefully we will be able to get this to work.

[Van Nugent]

The following 2 things may fix the problem:

1) Format the PATA drive but do not install Windows XP. Connect the SATA drive then boot the system with WinXP CD to install XP on the PATA drive. Since the SATA drive is used as a secondary drive, you can install the SATA driver during or after XP setup.

2) If Windows XP has already been installed, connect the SATA drive then boot the system up from Windows XP CD. When the setup starts, get to the Recovery Console (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B314058) then run the following commands:

attrib -h -r -s c:\boot.ini
del c:\boot.ini
bootcfg/rebuild
fixboot

then type exit and press <Enter> to exit the Recovery Console. Eject the XP CD then reboot.

[strandville]

Ok Mr Snatcher welcome back ;) and thanks to all who have/are giving input.
The SATA drivers are on a floppy, when I installed win xp I hit f6 to install SATA drivers. you are right there are 4 SATA connections I have tried the drive in all 4: yes the EIDE is set as master and is first boot device. Now I will go through bios settings and let u know what I find.Thanks again.

Van Nugent, I will try your suggestions after I have tried MR Snatcher if you don't mind but they seem the easiest options;) Though your second suggestion above sounds more likely to be the best of the options. Thanks for the help.

[Van Nugent]

FYI, the "hal.dll is missing" error message tells you that the boot.ini is misconfigured. If the boot.ini is properly configured and the HDD's are recognized by the system, it doesn't matter whether or not the SATA drive was set up in the boot sequence, as long as the PATA is set first in the boot sequence.

To avoid the boot.ini being misconfigured by the system, you need to do as I mentioned in (1) above. If you've already installed WinXP and the boot.ini file was not properly set, you'll need to follow (2) above to fix it.

[strandville]

XP is installed on the pc, so I will try as you suggest, I realise there may be a problem with the boot sequence, what I dont understand is when I attatch the SATA drive everything goes to the wall, I have tried a clean install of the system with the SATA attatched and I can't even do that it stalls the pc, black screen etc the only way possible for me to get the pc up and running again was to take SATA drive off and reformat my other drive.Thanks again Van Nugent, hope I didn't offend as it wasn't meant ;) vbmenu_register("postmenu_43144", true);

[Van Nugent]

I have tried a clean install of the system with the SATA attatched and I can't even do that it stalls the pc
Have you tried the SATA drive on another system to make sure it's working OK?

[strandville]

van nugent I followed your instructions, now when I boot I get the message invalid boot.ini booting from C: it boots ok but only with the SATA drive disconnected :(

[Van Nugent]

Have you tried the SATA drive on another system to make sure it's working OK?
:)

[strandville]

Sorry no I haven't tried it in another system I dont have one :( but it is only a new drive, and when I go into Bios I can see the drive and bios gives me details of its size etc, I know this probably doesn't mean much but its all I have to go on, I am loathe to give this drive up but get the feeling I have no option, The last thing I done was connec nothing but the SATA drive and tried formatting it but when it got to the windows screen it just rebooted......thank you again for your input it is much appreciated ;)