I just bought a new computer system:

sapphire pure crossfire advantage mobo
AMD athlon 3800+ skt939
radeon X850XT PE
Maxtor 250gb sata hdd

The problem I am having is that I can't install windows onto the sats hdd. When I get to the windows XP install screen it says that "windows cannot be installed because no harddrive was found". I can't seem to fix it and in the bios for some reason the sata hdd is seen as a SCSI drive (this is in the boot-up priority screen). When it is under the IDE controller it is fine and windows can be installed onto it but it is only showing 131gb (119gb less then it actually is) and under the raid controller it is not seen at all. Can anybody help me with this?

Cheers, mattyuk.

Check the system BIOS to make sure that SATA is enabled. I've notice it is often disabled by default.

I can't find the "SATA Enable" setting anywhere in the bios.

mattyuk,

There are several things that you need to do/check. Make sure that your MB BIOS is up to date. The latest for your board I believe is Nov 2005. Check the Sapphire support for your latest BIOS and also download all the drivers they have on their site because you will need them during the setup especially the ATI SATA drivers. Here's the site:

http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/support/drivers.php (choose your MB)
http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/driverfiles/78.pdf (your MB Manual)

Then what you'll need to do is:

- Prepare a floppy with the SATA drivers.
- Configure your BIOS for RAID (see the manual above for details)
-- You need to enable "OnChip SATA Controller (Both)"
-- You need to set "OnChip SATA Type" to IDE if you have one Drive or RAID if you have more than 1 SATA HDD.
- Boot Priority should NOT be SCSI. You should boot from the first Hard drive. Once you configure your OnChip SATA type you should see the new drive in the boot priority section.

- Now stick the floppy with the ATI SATA files on it (you'll have to unzip what you download from the sapphire website onto this floppy).
- Stick the Windows XP CD and power on.
- When you see the F6 at the bottom PRESS IT QUICK :). It only lasts for a few seconds so if you miss it then you'll need to reboot again. This step will allow Windows to read the SATA drivers for your controller so that Windows can see the drive (this is why you couldn't see the drive before).

Then the rest should be standard once you actually do read the new drivers for your hard drive and you should be familiar with the rest of the install (i.e. normal Windows install at that point).

Good luck.

Casey

It won't let me install the drivers from the floppy, it says that there are no support files on it. Also when I set the controller to IDE windows sees it as a driver but not as 250gb but as 131gb, and when I try to install windows on it it just locks up. I got to be doing something wrong (I never use to have this trouble with IDE HDD) :(

Go back to where you bought the machine and get their help. Sounds like things were not setup properly

Did you unzip the downloaded ATI SATA drivers to the floppy or did you just copy the zip file to the floppy? The drivers if unzipped properly to the floppy should work with the F6 Method. Also, just to make sure we're both looking at the same file which one was it that you downloaded?

Another thing to try is the floppy that came with your Motherboard (if should have come with one).

Casey