Help building this thing....

[ShinRa]

Ok well I started building the comp in my specs.(except the xt, i have a placeholder card in there now - fx5950)It's up and running even cooler than my older 3.0ghz p4. However there's a slight problem. I can't get past the first screen because it's not detecting my harddrive. it says theres no hd connected. so ok i go in and look around. hmm i have an extra wire here that plugs perfectly into the hd. i plug that in, and the other end into the power supply. apparently its not it. does the hd have to be connected to the mobo? because if it does, the raptor doesnt have that socket where i can put the ide cable in. it has a thing where a thin slot plug connects into it, and a power plug. so what do i haveta do to get this raptor to work? do i need to buy something special for it?

 

[Gajdycz]

ok, the raptor should be plugged in for power, and data. for data, u either have a ide cable, a wide gray thing with lots of dots, or ATA, a small little connector that goes to ur mobo. hopefully someone else would help, i have to worry and swoon over my own comp

 

[blahblahblah]

So you POST up just fine? Or is it giving your a post error message?

You have to install SATA drivers before you install windows. Your SATA drivers are probably on your motherboard CD. Put those SATA drivers onto a floppy.

Once Win2K/Xp is setting up, at the first blue screen hit "F6" to load a thrid party mass storage driver. If you miss this, you will be warned that there are no harddrives attached. Restart the machine and Tap the "F6" Key a few times as the CD is spinning up. Windows will go through its install routine, then prompt you for an OEM disk for your MASS STORAGE CONTROLLER. Insert the floppy you created in the steps above, and load the first driver on the list. <Purposely skipped part about RAID> LEAVE THIS FLOPPY IN THE DRIVE!

Let 2K/XP do the partiiton and isntall. Choose isntall to the empty disk & choose NTFS FULL format, not quick. If you don't have any other hard disks on your regular IDE channels, there can be a LONG pause after the format, be patient.

IF YOU HAD THE LONG PAUSE DURING INSTALL, you will have the same booting into 2K/XP. Once the install is all done, go into the BIOS, and change "AUTO" to "NONE" for all channels wherer there are no devices connected. NOTE: This is for your regular IDE channels, not your RAID array.

Let windows do its thing.

That is what I had to do to get my SATA drives up and working. Yours maybe different since I also I have a SATA RAID array.

 

[FictiousWill]

Yeah, the HD has to be connected to the mobo, not just the PS lol. Use the sata cables to do it. Most likely they're red with black tips. Then you'll have to figure out the driver crap as blahblahblah said.

 

[WillH]

I'm going to abstain from any rude remarks. But yeah, harddrives need to be plugged into the mobo.

 

[lePobz]

Hope your motherboard has a SATA port, if not you'll need to take that Hard-Drive back and get an UltraATA drive instead :|

 

[ShinRa]

Yea I have that cable. It's red and it comes with a black tip with a cover on it. I plugged it into the hd, but now where the hell does it go on the mobo? (I'm used to dealing with normal ide cables, not this sata stuff).

Also thanks blahblahblah you've been a great help. That's alotta steps so I'm gonna print them out and try them tomorrow morning.

 

[FictiousWill]

There's only one port it'll fit in, that's a sata port. If you don't have one then you can either give the HD back, or get a sata converter pci card thingy.

 

[ShinRa]

Well its an ASUS A8V mobo....it should have a sata port....

 

[blahblahblah]

Your motherboard SATA connectors will be at the bottom right of your motherboard. There will be two of them, plug your cable into the first one (it will be called #1 or primary). Then plug the SATA cable into your harddrive. Its respective slot should be on the right side of the Harddrive.

As for power, you have 2 options you can use a SATA power connector or a regular molex connector (don't use both!!!). The SATA power connector has no advantages over the molex connector unless you plan on hot swapping your drives (ironically, your mobo doesn't support that). Read the little manual that came with your power supply to properly ID the SATA power connector. Or you can make your life simple and use a 4 pin Molex connector, its your choice.

You may also want to read your motherboard manual, guinny

 

[Asus]

The 2 small red connections on the motherboard are the SATA connectors, guinny.
There might be 2 more that are black.
Use one of them that is by the VIA chipset for SATA. Don't use the ones by the Promise chip. The VIA SATA controller is better.

Only use 1 power connector. It is bad if you have both plugged into the drive. The molex connector is the one that fits other Drives, like CD drives. The SATA power connector is that adaptor, with a molex connection on one end and a black connections on the other, that comes with the motherboard. I wouldn't use those.

You will probably need drivers to install an OS onto a SATA harddrive which may be included with the motherboard on a Floppy disk. If not, you can go to VIA's website and download the drivers to a floppy disk and insert the disk while installing Windows. You might need to hit 'F6' to specify the drivers to be used. It's actually pretty easy, just a little bit of a hassle.

Molex power connector = White

 

[ShinRa]

gotcha. you know its funny, i was checking out the bios...and heres the funny thing.

P4 3.0ghz Temps:

Cpu - 55-58C
Mobo - 34c

AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 Temps:

Cpu - 49-50c
Mobo - 24c

Same cooling solutions....kinda funny isnt it?

edit- and the fx temps is without the ceramique on the cpu being settled in or whatever.

 

[FictiousWill]

looks like the sata ports are the small red ones on that mobo. Sounds like you've got it sorted anyway though. Happy computing!

 

[ShinRa]

Thanks fictious for the help. I've got a 9800 pro in there for now, Ill do the hd thing tomorrow. And hopefully this is my last night on the blasted p4 with its disgustingly hot temps.

 

[Hazar]

Hope your motherboard has a SATA port, if not you'll need to take that Hard-Drive back and get an UltraATA drive instead :|

hahaha

me too. not to be mean or anything but, putting the hardware together is really easy. getting the software to work right is the tricky part.

 

[ShinRa]

no offense taken ive just never worked with anything other than ide so im alittle lost.

 

[ShinRa]

Ok the hd is all hooked up. Now I went to vias website like blah and asus told me to, I dl'ed the drivers and when I tried to extract them onto the floppy it said not enough space. So what am I supposed to do?

 

[FictiousWill]

Just extract the sata drivers. Not all the mobo drivers. It should tell you which ones. Then when you install XP, press F6 (I think) and it will prompt you to insert the driver disk.

 

[Asus]

Getting it setup? You're not on AIM.

 

[ShinRa]

Working on it asus. Anyway, I'm off to try it out. Hopefully this is my last post on this P4 system.

 

[ShinRa]

ahhh crap. Ok one more post on this p4 (hopefully)

I set everything up. Unfortunetely it said cannot locate drive and gave me the option to "specify drive" so i did and it said please insert floppy into drive a, so i did (the one with the drivers asus told me to put on, i didnt put all the files on, just the 3 files in the raid folder for windows xp) and it said cant find txtsetup.oem file. So apparently either i A) need to get all the files onto a floppy. B) have a ****ed up hd that doesnt work. so what should i do guys?

 

[blahblahblah]

Browse you motherboard driver CD again for any additional SATA drivers. My motherboard driver CD had multiple versions of SATA drivers so you may have to find a different one.

Also, your Motherboard manual might mention what to drivers you need to put on a floppy disk. Or you could simplely call ASUS tech support.

 

[Asus]

It might be the files under the RAID setup that we looked at the first time, rather than under boot.

 

[ShinRa]

Whoa hold the phone. My motherboard cd? I never used it. Am I supposed to boot from cd and put the mobo cd in before windows??

 

[blahblahblah]

Whoa hold the phone. My motherboard cd? I never used it. Am I supposed to boot from cd and put the mobo cd in before windows??

No, no, no. You need to browse your motherboard driver CD on a working PC to find the proper SATA drivers and then put the SATA drivers on to a floppy.

 

[Asus]

I wonder how he's doing...hehe

 

[blahblahblah]

I wonder how he's doing...hehe

Lol, i'm willing to bet he has more questions about building his computer. In fact I created a probable transcript for us tommorow

Guinny - Okay, I have a question for Asus and Blahblahblah
Asus - What?
Guinny - Okay I have this thing that is square and has 939 pins underneath it. What do I do with it?
Blahblahblah - It's your processor. You know the thing you paid $800 for.
Guinny - Ahhhh, so it goes in my motherboard?
Asus - Yes, here are five links telling you how to do it...
Blahblahblah - Yeah, and here is my lazy explanation on how to install your processor...
Guinny - I still don't get it
Blahblahblah - Just put it in your c0mput3r!!!
Guinny - Thx



JK with you guinny

I hope everything goes smooth.

 

[ShinRa]

Funny blah lol. Actually I'm now officially talking to you from my FX-53 socket 939 processor! Thanks for all your help guys. I installed windows in 6 minutes and 32 seconds flat. I'm still in shock at the blazing speed this thing has. I've never seen anything like it. If you guys want any benchmarks I'll feel free to makem for ya. Thanks again to all who helped. All I need now is that damn x800 xt that was supposed to be released god knows how long ago.

 

[Asus]

I bet you can't install all of your apps in record time.
Glad you got it setup and enjoy.

 

[ShinRa]

Well with the 5 cds of installation on ut2004 it only took 4 minutes
so i guess thats kinda record time...for me at least.