WinXP fails to see second SATA drive

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SOLVED: WinXP fails to see second SATA drive

SHORT:

I have fitted a second SATA drive (non-RAID) to an existing P4C800, Win XP system, using the second SATA connector. The BIOS recognises the new drive, but when booting into Windows, there is no sign of the drive - in device manager, in 'Manage/Disk Management'. Nada, nowt, nothing. Do I have to do something in windows to force recognition of the drive?

Any other ideas :(

LONG:

Asus P4C800. WinXP SP2 + all patches. New drive is WDC WD2500K (250G SATA II).

In the BIOS,
the DVD drive appears as IDE Primary Master 1,
the existing Samsung SATA drive appear as IDE Master 3,
the new WD SATA II drive appears as IDE Master 4.

The new drive attributes, LBA, DMA etc, looks exactly as expected.

The BIOS boots from DVD then the Samsung. The option to boot from the new drive is not available.

The BIOS is set to non-RAID, Enhanced mode.

In device manager, there are no yellow '!'s.

Tried,

1. Booting from Linux installation disks. The new drive is presented as an option for installation/partitioning etc.

2. Booting from PartionMagic. The new drive is visible and partitionable.

3. Booting from the *original* XP installation disk. The new drive is presented as an option for the Windows installation, although, as expected, the drive size was limited to 128G.

4. Flashing BIOS to latest available.

5. Fitting jumper to new drive to limit interface speeds to SATA, not SATA II.

6. Swapped the new drive to the first SATA connector and the existing drive to the second SATA connector. Not suprisingly, WinXP fails to boot (boot.ini?)

7. Bashed head against nearest wall. :mad:
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys. The non-deluxe MB just has the two SATA connectors - I think the ICHR5 is correct - since I'm not using RAID, my understanding is that the WinXP drivers will handle this situation without the 'F6' stuff. Using the AsusProbe S/W, it reports SATA1 and SATA2 (if my memory serves me correctly).

I have tried the WD tools, but only from windows. I'll have a go at the DOS/CD method tonight.

Thanks again. At least I have something to try :)
 
amdnv said:
I had the same issue 2 weeks ago with adding 2nd sata, use the manu's formating tools you can grab on floppy or iso, unplug good drive ideally, let tool see new drive, quick format going by on screen msg's, turn PC off and plug in prim drive and you will have 2 usuable drives on restarting.

amdnv, could I just clarify something. Have you used the Western Digital disk utilities, or were you just refering to the manufacturer's tools, in general?

If it was the former, was it the 'Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (CD)' or the 'Data Lifeguard Tools 11 for DOS'?

The reason I ask is that the bootable Diagnostic has a 'Write Zeroes' option, but not 'format'.
 
Aaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! :mad:

Ok, I tried the full test with the Western Digital utilities and it made no difference whatsoever. :( :(

So, I was rooting around in the device manager, looking at the properties of the 'Primary IDE Channel' (there are two of them, one for the real IDE interface and a further 'Primary IDE Channel' and 'Secondary IDE Channel' for the SATA interfaces.

I noticed that on the Advanced Settings tab, the Device Type was set to 'none'. Hmmm, I changed this to 'Auto Detection' and re-booted.

Alla-bloody-luia!!! The new disk popped up in the Disk Management section and I'm in business.

The really annoying thing is that I have used this facility in past to deliberately ignore some linux drives. I just forgot about it.

Thanks for your help, people. Hopefully, this will remind others to check the Device Type settings if they have simllar problems.
 
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