New OS problems

Dubb3d · 1 Sep 2010 at 18:07

Hello,

I am currently trying to put a new SATA HDD into my brothers PC.

His mobo is a Abit Av8, I have had problems installing SATA onto it before with windows XP as it requires you to provide it with SATA drivers from a floppy or some other source. I actually formatted the drive in question on my own PC with the hope of only having to unplug the old IDE one and plug in the new SATA.

But I get a 'No boot disk please insert systen disk' or some version of that, I can boot from CD and get to the reformating procedure but I end up in a similar situation where it tells me there is no hard disk to install windows on.

I am trying to install windows 7 but the mobo can't recognise that theres a hard drive there and it wont show up in the bios.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks

95thrifles · 1 Sep 2010 at 18:16

have you tried flashing the bios to latest version?

Dubb3d · 1 Sep 2010 at 19:01

I haven't as the last time they were updated for the AV8 was 2005 and I have a feeling that this is complicated with the addition of windows 7, as I have successfully loaded drivers for SATA drives to work with this mobo and XP in the past.

Surely it couldnt be possible that the combination of windows 7, the av8 and the SATA drivers just aren't compatible??

J.B · 1 Sep 2010 at 19:08

In Windows 7 you can locate the drivers from an external drive. So you just need the SATA drivers. its weird though because Windows 7 has pretty good SATA support. In XP you had to load the drivers in to the PE using a floppy drive and was a royal pain in the behind.

The other option was to use nLite to slipstream the drivers into an installation CD but again, in Win7 I wouldnt think this is required, but anything is possible I guess.

My first avenue of investigation would be to make sure that the drive is connected and working properly. If its not showing up in the BIOS then it is probably not a Windows problem, check all the connections, change the SATA cable and SATA port, check the ports are enabled on the BIOS. Basically if the BIOS cant see it then you are never going to get Windows or even the Windows PE to see it!

Dubb3d · 3 Sep 2010 at 00:26

Just wanted to thank you guys for your help and give an update in case anyone was curious.

I fixed the problem by discovering the Mobo did not support SATA II i.e. 3 GB's, this was fixed by adding a jumper to lower the rate to 1.5GB/s.

Just a little update as its always nice when people share solutions!

95thrifles · 3 Sep 2010 at 06:08

interesting to know, strange cos I'd of thought it would be backwards compatible and just run at the lower rate, guess not
which mobo was it? have to look into that now and see if its mobo specific or general problem

Hagar · 3 Sep 2010 at 09:00

I had the same mobo with the same problem, no sata II support. Unfortunately the drive I was trying to install was not backward compatible, Seagate 1.5Tb.
I could install it on a sata card, but only as a data disk. The bios would not see it to boot from and yes I had the latest bios.

Nice to see you overcame your problem. I upgraded my PC but the AV8 was a good board and it is sad to see the demise of ABIT.

J.B · 3 Sep 2010 at 09:08

95thrifles said:
interesting to know, strange cos I'd of thought it would be backwards compatible and just run at the lower rate, guess not
which mobo was it? have to look into that now and see if its mobo specific or general problem

You could argue that it is backwards compatible, just needs reconfiguring before it will work!

Im not entirely sure what the backwards compatible rules are in the SATA spec. For example I imagine that all SATA mobo connections will be backwards compatible with previous versions. So say you could plug a SATAT I HDD into a modern SATA III motherboard. Im not sure if it will work the other way with new HDD working on old boards though.

I dont know for sure, just speculating.

Glad to hear you got the problem fixed though. And thanks for posting the solution. I always think it adds value to the forum that not only is it a wealth of knowledge and experience, it also becomes a good reference guide for problems and solutions.