Topic: SATA drive installation help!

[Jimna]

i have a run out of space for my recordings again!  so with X-mas gift cards to BB i got a new internally cooled enclosure and a 1TB seagate SATA drive.  the enclosure also came with the sata cable/outlet card thing for in my tower.  i did the initial formatting of the HD and moving of some files (like 451gb  ) at first just using the firewire because i was lazy.  so today i manage some motivation and tear the side off my tower to try something new to me(here starts the problem).  my asus A8V-XE mother board has 2 sata plugs/ports labeled master and 2 slave.  at first i plug it in the slave port and fire up the PC.  no dice it doesnt recognize it.  so i figure what the hell and plug it in the master port, and it sees it.  all is good until i restart my PC and i get the asus start up screen and it wont boot windows.  WTF?  so i hit delete which takes me into the setup screen.  after swapping the drive back to the slave port and restarting a few more times it does boot up windows.  so what am i doing wrong?  was it trying to boot from the new master sata drive instead of the original master HD?  any help or advice is much appreciated.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

SATA doesn't have a master and/or slave. They are treated individually.

Not exactly sure whats going on, but here are a few ideas:

Sometimes the motherboard will need additional drivers for it's additional SATA ports. Try that. Also they may not even show up in Windows until they are enabled via the BIOS.

You say the drive is in an enclosure. Why are you connecting it to the motherboard? Does the enclosure have a eSATA connection? If so, you should connect it to an eSATA connector on you motherboard or a PCI/PCI-Express card if you MB doesn't have an eSATA port on it.

Otherwise I'm stumped.

My ASUS motherboards SATA connectors don't seem to work and I have never gotten them to work. From what I've read it take quite a bit of tinkering to get them working and I've never bothered. I'm planning on building a new machine soon, so it's not worth it for me.

Good luck.

[manitouman]

Well I know it can't be your master drive because that is where your applications need to run from, such as Windows. I "think" you have to go into your settings somewhere, maybe BIOS(?), and make sure your new drive is recognized by your system. Just because you plug it in doesn't necessarily mean it will be recognized by the system.

I'm not 100% sure though....someone will chime in soon with better info.  

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I found this. Maybe it will help:

http://www.chovy.com/personal/install-sata-hdd-on-asus-a8v-deluxe-motherboard/

Not the same as your MB, but similar. I should read it...that's the MB I have!

EDIT: Now that I read it...it doesn't help much. I'll look for something better.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I can't find anything else interesting, but it looks like you might need a floppy drive.

If you need one, I keep one on hand for such emergencies! You're welcome to borrow it, if you don't have one.

[Jimna]

how do get to the BIOS?  i just read the book for the drive and it said i might need to enable the sata ports in the BIOS....

[rdfager]

I'm guessing that you're right and the computer is trying to boot from your new drive.  You should be able to change this by removing the "boot" or "active" flag from the partition on this new drive.  Use the fdisk or diskpart utility to check and remove the flag, depending on your version of windows.

[Jimna]

I'm guessing that you're right and the computer is trying to boot from your new drive.  You should be able to change this by removing the "boot" or "active" flag from the partition on this new drive.  Use the fdisk or diskpart utility to check and remove the flag, depending on your version of windows.

how do i get to those utilities bob?  im running XP.  it worked when it was plugged into the master ports but nothing from the slave port. 

i should have mentioned that the enclosure came with the pseudo card thing that fits into the back of the tower where the pci cards all go, but isnt a pci but rather just a cable off the back of the card that stretches over to the ports on the MB, and this is what ive been swapping from master to slave and so on...

[rdfager]

You'll probably need to connect it via firewire again, to get the computer up and running with the new disk recognized.

Then bring up diskpart by going to start... run... and typing in diskpart.  It should open a command line window.

Type "list disk" to show the disks installed on your system.

Type "select disk #"  ie: "select disk 2" to select the new disk.  Be sure you get this right. Selecting the wrong disk can mess up your system.

Type "list partition" to show the partitions on that disk.

Type "select partition #" to select the correct partition on this disk.  I'm guessing you only have one partition so you'll type "select partition 1"

Type "detail partition" to see if it is active.  It should show active and say yes or no near the top of the output.

If it is active, type "inactive"

****WARNING****  If you do this on your main hard drive, instead of the external drive, your system will not boot.  BE SURE YOU SELECT THE CORRECT DRIVE

Edit to ADD:  You can probably do this with the Disk Management GUI too.  But, being mostly a Linux guy I'm more of a command line person and I'm not sure how to do it with Disk Management.  Maybe someone else here can point you in the right direction if you'd rather do it that way.

[Jimna]

You'll probably need to connect it via firewire again, to get the computer up and running with the new disk recognized.

Then bring up diskpart by going to start... run... and typing in diskpart.  It should open a command line window.

Type "list disk" to show the disks installed on your system.

Type "select disk #"  ie: "select disk 2" to select the new disk.  Be sure you get this right. Selecting the wrong disk can mess up your system.

Type "list partition" to show the partitions on that disk.

Type "select partition #" to select the correct partition on this disk.  I'm guessing you only have one partition so you'll type "select partition 1"

Type "detail partition" to see if it is active.  It should show active and say yes or no near the top of the output.

If it is active, type "inactive"

****WARNING****  If you do this on your main hard drive, instead of the external drive, your system will not boot.  BE SURE YOU SELECT THE CORRECT DRIVE

Edit to ADD:  You can probably do this with the Disk Management GUI too.  But, being mostly a Linux guy I'm more of a command line person and I'm not sure how to do it with Disk Management.  Maybe someone else here can point you in the right direction if you'd rather do it that way.

thanks bob.  ill give her a go now...

[Jimna]

well the drive was active, but is no longer.  unfortunately it still wont boot up when the drive is plugged into the master port.  i did discover though that when i go to the device manager and and click on action>scan for new devices it finds the drive, even when plugged into the slave port and i can use the drive with out issue.  BUT if i shut down or restart the computer it doesnt see the drive when i restart it.  then if i go to the device manager and rescan for the drive it doesnt see it until i unplug and replug it in?  very strange.  what in the world could cause this?

[Roving Sign]

cant you hit "Delete" at boot and get into the BIOS...

From there ask the BIOS to recognize the drive, save settings and reboot...

(caveat: I have not worked with SATA drives...)

[ethan]

not sure what's going on.

I can probably come by your place today and take a look.

I would start by looking at the bios menu as others have suggested. Mother boards have different ways of getting to the BIOS. When you power on you should briefly see options like F2=setup or something you want to press the right key before it starts to boot.

Once in the BIOS there are a couple things to look for. There will probably be a menu for drives or devices. You'll want to look at the the boot device order too and make sure it's going in the correct sequence. I do find it odd that a drive would come with the boot flag set on the partition unless you accidently set it when formatting. Either way once you boot that fdisk utill the command prompt should let you figure out if it's set or not.

I'm also curious if the enclosure and card for the PCI bus is eSATA and not SATA.

[Gordon]

kind of untreated but you should know that most sata and esata and not be safely hot swapped.   ie you can't do the safely remove hardware and turn it off.  you have to shut down the computer to safely disconnect the external (when using esata).  I found a cure for this.

http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm

makes sata and esata hot swappable.  if you turn the drive on while booted you will have to scan for new hardware (you can do it the regular way or use the app I posted).

[Jimna]

kind of untreated but you should know that most sata and esata and not be safely hot swapped.   ie you can't do the safely remove hardware and turn it off.  you have to shut down the computer to safely disconnect the external (when using esata).  I found a cure for this.

http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm

makes sata and esata hot swappable.  if you turn the drive on while booted you will have to scan for new hardware (you can do it the regular way or use the app I posted).

cool, thanks ill give this a try. 

not sure what's going on.

I can probably come by your place today and take a look.

I would start by looking at the bios menu as others have suggested. Mother boards have different ways of getting to the BIOS. When you power on you should briefly see options like F2=setup or something you want to press the right key before it starts to boot.

Once in the BIOS there are a couple things to look for. There will probably be a menu for drives or devices. You'll want to look at the the boot device order too and make sure it's going in the correct sequence. I do find it odd that a drive would come with the boot flag set on the partition unless you accidently set it when formatting. Either way once you boot that fdisk utill the command prompt should let you figure out if it's set or not.

I'm also curious if the enclosure and card for the PCI bus is eSATA and not SATA.

so ethan, whats the correct boot device order?  how would i know if the enclosure is a eSATA and not SATA?  what would this mean either way?  your welcome to stop by anytime, btw.  thanks for the help.