SATA drives installed, but not visible in XP... help

  • Thread starter Thread starter Thumper
  • Start date Start date
T

Thumper

I read many questions on Google Groups about a SATA drive not being
recognized during a fresh XP install. But my situation is different.

I have two Maxtor SATA drives on the onboard RAID (Asus A7N8X). I
installed the drivers during the XP setup (press F6, press S, enter
disk). I also used the raid utility (before boot up) to create a
stripe raid. I also installed the necessary files from the Asus CD-ROM
from within XP. And the Device Manager lists it as working properly
(SiI RAID 0 Set 0 SCSI Disk Device).

BUT, when I check "My Computer", the striped SATA drive(s) is not
there!

I was never asked to format the raid drive during setup. Could this be
the problem? If so, what can I do to format the drive?
 
within XP go to control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disc
management
your drives should be listed there
now all you need to do is format them
peter
 
Yes, they have to be formated.
And you must probably use Diskpart to create one or more
partitions first.

If you launch WinXp by pressing F8 and
choosing Command line, all necessary
utilities will be available - diskpart and format.
 
Thanks, Peter! I did what you said and was able to get my RAID
recognized. I couldn't figure out how to format the drive from there,
so I installed Partition Magic 8 and formatted it from there.

It seems to be working now and runs faster than the system drive
(which was the point of the RAID, so I am happy!)

Thanks for the help. I hope this reply will help others too. Here are
some keywords to help others find this in Google Groups:


recognize hard drive
find hard drive
hard drive not recognized in windows
format hard drive
asus A7N8X
sata hard drive
Maxtor 120GB
F6
diskette
 
"Thanks, Peter! I did what you said and was able to get my RAID
recognized. I couldn't figure out how to format the drive from there,
so I installed Partition Magic 8 and formatted it from there."

I wouldn't let part magic near one of my hard drives, let alone a stripe!
in disk management, right click and create your partitions, I have even been
doing the quick format option for ntfs for the last year. It took me a few
months to get used to the interface, it's one of the best features of
windows xp. Kinda neat to reassign drive letters also! I play musical
hard drives so much, I give my dvd-rom, dvd-rw, and cd-rw, X, Y, and Z.
 
"Thanks, Peter! I did what you said and was able to get my RAID
recognized. I couldn't figure out how to format the drive from there,
so I installed Partition Magic 8 and formatted it from there."

I wouldn't let part magic near one of my hard drives, let alone a stripe!
in disk management, right click and create your partitions, I have even been
doing the quick format option for ntfs for the last year. It took me a few
months to get used to the interface, it's one of the best features of
windows xp. Kinda neat to reassign drive letters also! I play musical
hard drives so much, I give my dvd-rom, dvd-rw, and cd-rw, X, Y, and Z.
Click to expand...

Similar situation for me. I currently have a single IDE drive on my
new system (A7N8X) but soon (hopefully Sunday) plan to go with SATA
Raid-0. Maybe two 36g raptors but more likely two 7200 Hitachis. Still
tossing it around.

The single drive is currently running Win2003 as a workstation (that's
another story). My plan, having read this thread, is to create the
raid while the drive is still there, use 2003's disk management to do
the partitioning and formatting, and then Ghost the existing image to
the Raid drive and start booting off the Raid.

Does this sound plausible? Is there still a reason to leave the boot
partition Fat32 or should the whole thing just be NTFS?
 
dgk said:
Does this sound plausible? Is there still a reason to leave the boot
partition Fat32 or should the whole thing just be NTFS?
Click to expand...

Yeah, should fine. Need to make sure that your RAID partition takes on the
correct drive letter when you reboot, I think ghost is the most succesful
method.

I would stick with NTFS unless you know you need fat32 (win9x, linux etc
needed to access the partition)

Ben
 
dgk said:
Similar situation for me. I currently have a single IDE drive on my
new system (A7N8X) but soon (hopefully Sunday) plan to go with SATA
Raid-0. Maybe two 36g raptors but more likely two 7200 Hitachis. Still
tossing it around.

The single drive is currently running Win2003 as a workstation (that's
another story). My plan, having read this thread, is to create the
raid while the drive is still there, use 2003's disk management to do
the partitioning and formatting, and then Ghost the existing image to
the Raid drive and start booting off the Raid.

Does this sound plausible? Is there still a reason to leave the boot
partition Fat32 or should the whole thing just be NTFS?
Click to expand...

One of the main reasons I abandoned fat32, was large raid stripes,
we lost a few, can't prove it was all fat32, part of the problem was crappy
ibm drives, but stripes/os/xp that failed also had maxtor drives that are
still
running well 1 1/2 yrs later! Cluster size is another issue to consider!
I clean install so often, never had a chance to use ghost, vbg!!!!!!
 
running well 1 1/2 yrs later! Cluster size is another issue to consider!
I clean install so often, never had a chance to use ghost, vbg!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Since I'm building this on an OS that I don't know and that really
isn't meant for workstation use, and on hardware that I'm overclocking
and unfamiliar with, I figured I could save myself some time by taking
intermediate backups as I went along. Sure came in handy when I blew
it to bits installing the ATI-All-In-Wonder 9600.
 
"Thanks, Peter! I did what you said and was able to get my RAID
recognized. I couldn't figure out how to format the drive from there,
so I installed Partition Magic 8 and formatted it from there."

I wouldn't let part magic near one of my hard drives, let alone a stripe!
in disk management, right click and create your partitions, I have even been
doing the quick format option for ntfs for the last year. It took me a few
months to get used to the interface, it's one of the best features of
windows xp. Kinda neat to reassign drive letters also! I play musical
hard drives so much, I give my dvd-rom, dvd-rw, and cd-rw, X, Y, and Z.


Problem is XP cant see the drive unless it is already formated. I just
used the XP installation CD to format mine. DOUG
 
Not said:
Problem is XP cant see the drive unless it is already formated. I
just used the XP installation CD to format mine. DOUG
Click to expand...

XP can see an unformatted drive, it can see a drive without any partitions,
but since the drive doesn;t have any filesystems on it, it does not have any
drive letters.

Windows 2000 can see the linux partitions on my drive, but since it know
absolutely nothing about the filesystems (linux swap, ReiserFS and EXT3), it
doesn't assign the partitions drive letters. To view drive details go to
Admin Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management

Ben
 
XP can see an unformatted drive, it can see a drive without any partitions,
but since the drive doesn;t have any filesystems on it, it does not have any
drive letters.

Windows 2000 can see the linux partitions on my drive, but since it know
absolutely nothing about the filesystems (linux swap, ReiserFS and EXT3), it
doesn't assign the partitions drive letters. To view drive details go to
Admin Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management

BenI installed a SATA drive and installed XP on it,then i installed another SATA
drive for storage and it would not show up in disk managment at all untill i
formatted it.
DOUG
 
I installed a SATA drive and installed XP on it,then i installed another SATA
drive for storage and it would not show up in disk managment at all untill i
formatted it.
DOUG
Click to expand...

NOPE!
 
Back
Top