Vista Can't Detect My SATA Drive

Big Kev

Big Kev

Big Kev

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I recently installed Vista RC1 on a partition on my main IDE drive and my Samsung SATA drive was detected fine, so after trying everything out, just in case of any compatibility issues, I decided to delete the partition and installed Vista on my main IDE drive.

Everything seemed to install ok, but now it won't detect the SATA drive.

Can anyone help, as I've a lot of stuff on there that I really need.

Cheers.
 
This happened to me once...I booted the puter without the SATA drive connected...then shut down....then rebooted with it connected and it detected it.

No idea why it worked but for some reason it did.

Is it detecting it in the BIOS when you boot up at least? Or is it just windows?
 
I had this problem.

What you need to do is, install the following:

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/download/23306.html

You need a floppy disc/drive. Basically boot up with the Win CD, when it asks to "Press F6 if you need to install a SCSI or RAID driver...." press F6, and it will contine with normal "setup" the above link will give you all the instructions.

So glad I found it! HTH, Andy
 
I didn't see an F6 option when installing and it wouldn't have mattered as my floppy isn't working (ooeer missus).
 
Can you not just go to device manager, click on 'Scan for new hardware' and it will prompt you for options installing the SATA controller? Then just select the appropriate options to allow you to point it to the SATA drivers you have downloaded? (Run the .exe first and let it extract its files to a folder that you then point it to). Can't be sure this will work since I haven't tried it myself but worth a go.

Hope this helps, null :)
 
Big Kev said:
I didn't see an F6 option when installing and it wouldn't have mattered as my floppy isn't working (ooeer missus).
Click to expand...

Should say pretty much straight away at the bottom on the "blue screen" you've got to be quick mind. You booting from a Win XP CD?
 
Did this get resolved? I am having exactly the same problem, half the time when I boot into Vista my SATA drive isn't recognised (not an os disk, just a data storage disk) but the other half the time it comes up fine :confused:

I know it isn't the drive because this machine dual boots with linux and it always sees the sata drive no problem..

It's so annoying, I have to soft reboot a few times if I want Vista to find the sata drive :(
 
in device manager do you see anything that has an exclamation mark next to it, your sata should be showing there (might be unknown device)

what motherboard do you have?

once you install the sata driver, the drive will be readable (if thats what your problem is)
 
You don't get the F6 option when installing Vista, it's supposed to handle it all by itself without the need for the FDD driver thing. Worked fine for me anyway, but then I'm not using RC1.
 
Clarkey said:
if its a missing driver for the controller you should be able to install it within windows no problem. No need for F6'ing in setup.
Click to expand...

exactly, this can be added at any time after installing windows (any version)

there's some duff advice in here tbh!

you only need to F6 in 2000/xp/2003 when you're installing windows on the drive that is connected to the controller that needs the driver
 
bledd. said:
in device manager do you see anything that has an exclamation mark next to it, your sata should be showing there (might be unknown device)

what motherboard do you have?

once you install the sata driver, the drive will be readable (if thats what your problem is)
Click to expand...
That's exactly the thing, there is no sata drive recognised at all. That's the odd thing! Sometimes it is there, sometimes not but it's all or nothing - there's never the classic yellow exclamation mark :(

I'm hoping the final version of Vista (downloading it now from MSDN site) will have a relevant fix..
 
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