I'm going to jump in here and maybe give you another idea to try. I've not
read this whole thread (damn top-posters anyway...;-) but the problem sounds
like one I had and posted about over in the setup group. I worked with Asus
(mb), NVIDIA (drivers) and the SATA drive manf to find a resolution.
Asus was helpful but not their problem - and they were correct.
NVIDIA mocked up a system using an A8N32-SLI mb and used the drivers that
are on the Vista DVD - they worked and this confirmed to me that mine should
also work.
SATA drive (who took over IBM's) had me run tests - all passed but said
"okay, don't know what the problem is but send it back and we'll swap it"
The SATA drive in question (new) has been used as a storage drive (300Gb)
and worked fine. When I decided to test Vista, it was used as the main
drive to load Vista on to. The installation went fine - no errors but once
it did it's first boot and Vista took over to complete the configuration, I
got a black screen and blinking cursor. Tried many hardware configurations
and ended up with the system barebones, mb, memory, video card, DVD, p/s,
keyboard, mouse and one SATA drive connected. Same problem.....tried
numerous configurations.
Put system back together which included 2 EIDE drives and 2 DVD's, 4 SATA
drives, 1 external SATA drive, dual video cards, and USB
connections.....same problem.
I found that I could not load any OS to that drive. I had partitioned and
formatted it under both WinXP and Vista - no difference and never any signs
of any problems no matter how it was used in the system.
Finally got out an old Win9x / WinXP boot disk that has FDISK (for >64Gb
drives) on it and used it at a DOS prompt to delete the NTFS partition then
re-partition the drive.
Tried one more time.... booted up using the Vista DVD and then used the
option in the Vista install to do a quick format on that drive and proceeded
with the install. It worked.....!
I naturally went and tried all the previous installs I tried before - WinXP
Pro, Vista x86 and x64 versions - they all loaded and ran fine. Retested
the drive using the HDUtil program and it tested fine - just as before.
The Asus mb uses the Silicon Image Sil3132 SATA controller for the external
(and one internal) SATA drive port on the A8N32-SLI Deluxe mb and I believe
it's the same on yours. The NVIDIA controller is for the 4 internal SATA
drives and uses the nForce4 chipset and nForce drivers. There are updates
available on the NVIDIA site and on the Silicon Image site for updating the
drivers - AFTER - Vista is installed. Any drive connected to the Sil3132
controller will not be seen until after the first update or if you want -
use the F6 key to install the Sil3132 drivers during the Vista installation
if your drive is connected to that controller (red port on board). The
NVIDIA ports (4) are black colored and clustered together.
I can't explain why using the FDISK routine from a Windows boot disk worked
and partitioning from within WinXP or Vista install routines did not. But
it did and I have since changed the drive configuration a number of times
for testing and no problems.
One other thing to check is when you reboot and if it looks like it can't
find the hard drive, reboot into the BIOS and be sure the Boot Drive
settings are correct and that the drive is being seen by the BIOS. If you're
using a RAID configuration - that's a whole different setup but if not using
RAID, be sure it's turned off, that IDE drives are enabled and that the 4
NVIDIA SATA ports are enabled. Everything works with the default settings
and with RAID disabled. Did not have to use any tricks or work-around to
get Vista to install once that hard drive was FDISK'd at the DOS level.
Someone else made a post as to where you can find the boot disk
(
www.bootdisk.com). Look under "DOStools", "PARTITIONING" and you will see
"MS Fdisk for Hard Disks Greater Than 64Gig" which you'll need to place on
the boot floppy or CD that you make. I already had the utilities so I
didn't download them from this site so I'll leave it to you to trust it or
not.
Bob S.
CrazyHorse said:
Not sure who to blame but I'm returning Vista. Unreal that this happens
with
such a popular combination of hardware. I'm using an A8NSLI that uses
NVRaid
chip. Not sure if that is really Silicon Image Raid chip or not, but
doesn't
really matter as far as I'm concerned.
I hope Bestbuy accepts my return. Lack of drivers, buggy installation, and
buggy application performance are my reasons.
snip.............of long post............
