Harddrives (Again)

mo, u need to update the bios as from what i understand, your mobo does not support drivers greater than 8 gig. a newer bios should allow this. which version 2. or 3. i dont know, as it claims this depends on your graphics drivers.

 

MO, choose 'SCSI' as one of the boot devices. Although you're not using a SCSI card, the BIOS will treat the SATA card in the same way as a SCSI controller in reference to bootup.

 

I've heard that the controller will likely have a sort of mini onboard BIOS. So I'll try seeing if that works before messing with the main BIOS. That seems a little intimidating.

MOst of these controllers apparantly do have the onboard BIOS. Any idea if the one I've got does (Julian?).

Also, I see the jumper pins......... but no jumper! What's going on there then?

 

MO, all of the cards you mention would have on-board BIOS's, as a SCSI controller would. Hence why you'll need to tell your motherboard's BIOS to boot from 'SCSI', as that's how it will interpret all mass storage controllers - be it PATA, SATA or SCSI. This will definately work, as from experience when using additional PATA and SCSI controller cards.

The 'jumper pins' you see aren't for jumpers. They are for connecting the hard drive activity light that is on the front of your case. It's more of a personal preference as to whether you want a 'visual' indication of hard drive activity.

 

Thanks for the swift reply

I'm just making sure I've got everything burnt to disc, but will try and get this done tonight.

I'm not really sure at which point I'm meant to change the settings to SCSI from IDE.

I take it best to boot up into BIOS and change it, then turn off and physicaly instal everything. Then start up with the............. erm the controller cards driver disc? Or windows xp disc?

Shit! Thought I had it figured!

 

Oh, and are you saying I don't need to bother with the jumper pins at all then?

 

u shouldn't need to bother with jumpers, sata doesn't use the concept of master and slave.
you will need to get your scsi/sata/raid drivers copied onto floppy disk if they came on cd. when installing xp, one of the first things it says (with a blue screen) is "press pf6 to install 3rd party scsi/raid drivers" do this and it will offer you the option to install the drivers for your scsi/sata controller card.

found this guide (quicker than typing myself) but this is for an integrated sata controller i.e. on the motherboard, u'll need to search around on the net, as i guess u need to tell the mobo bios to boot from a 3rd party pci scsi controller.
actually there's probably a guide that comes with the controller !

that should help.

 

mo,
first of all install the new controller and drive.
then copy everything over to the new one.
then install windows onto the new drive.
then make the new drive the boot drive
then remove the old drive.
cheers


julian

 

just try and make sure you use Seagate SATA drives

SATA installation is easy, take a peek on the web.

A good non-biased link......http://www.storagereview.com

 

I tried it. I failed.

I took this drive out.
plugged the card and new drive in.
connected to power.
turned on and went into BIOS. Swopped the IDE to SCSI
it then started to instal windows and asks right at the begining about 3rd party SCSi/Raid drivers. So pressed F6 like instructed.
Then as mentioned might happen, asked for a loppy.

Gave up, and put this back in again.

How do I fit a 114MB cd onto a floppy?

 

This is looking like the plan seeming as I can't figure out how to get the card drivers onto floppy.

But not sure my PSU is up to running both @ 235W

Also, "then copy everything over to the new one.
then install windows onto the new drive."

What am I copying over before windows?

I imagien this is getting very tedious now.

Your help is appreciated though

 

no problem mo,
any data that you want to preserve - i guess that's not a lot after your deletion frenzy. stuff like any e-mail, your favorites list from explorer (or whatever), the gigs of porn you have stashed, that kind of thing.

i'd think your psu would be ok. i've got 3 hdd's a floppy and a cdr drive running in mine and it's older than your pc. i've acctually run out of power connectors inside my pc now so physically cannot expand it any more! if it does go pop a new one shouldn't be a huge amount of money though. a dabs 550 watt with neon lights is 23 quid.
cheers


julian

 

OK

I may or may not be back...

 

Connected both drives. left 1st boot as floppy, 2nd as cdrom 3rd as IDE0

powered up.

Windows managed to get to my desktop once but was almost completely unresponsive.

Tried a few MOre times and only managed as far as the scrolling blue bar screen while XP loads. Even the scrolling blue bar was stuttery, then just didn't seem to move at all.

For a while this was interesting. I've learnt some new things.

Now I'm just getting ****ed off!

Ahhhhhhhh!!!

 

Right...

Should have been obvious but didn't cross my confused mind. The CD must be shipped with various products, hence has far more on it than I need.

My Controller is labeled DM-8301H (NON RAID)

There's a folder on the CD called DM-8301. And within it are two folders IDE and RAID. and a readme file with instructions of how to put them onto a floppy.

I know the Card is "NON RAID". But it's not IDE either......

which one do I put onto floppy?

Surely this is the last hurdle..........

 

MO! since you're not using the RAID support I would assume that the drivers you need to install are those from the folder labelled IDE. If you check out InnoVISION's website you can download the necessary driver from there, just follow this link http://www.ivmm.com/download.html and choose EIO as the brand, then Serial ATA/IDE controller as the product type, then DM8301H Serial ATA IDE Controller Card and then Driver and there's only one download available for your card. Anyway hope this helps and fingers crossed you get it all sorted out.

 

Typical!!!

I was checking for a blank floppy, put one in, checked what was on there and took it out. It put up a bit of "resistance", I didn't force it.

Now I can't get it to take another floppy!!!

Days of trying to sort this. Finally think I've got it sussed and then this!!!

:lol:

 

i had similar prblems on friday. the cd drive in my 6 month old laptop has packed up. so i tried to hook up an old external usb drive however after about 3 minutes something want pop and the magic smoke escaped 1/2 way through ripping a cd.
sod's law is a fundamental principal of the universe. i wonder where it fits in with quantum theory.
cheers


julian

 

So, the thread turns into "New Floppydrive"

This looks posh...
http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/storage/productView.htm?quicklinx=2SRJ

 

GRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Managed to borrow a floppy drive so just had another go.

Saved the driver to floppy and turned off the computer to reMOve power from the old drive and plug in the new one.
Started into bios and changed the boot sequence from floppy/cdrom/ide0 to cdrom/scsi/floppy
Started up with the XP disk in and pressed F6 when prompted to install 3rd party scsi drivers.
Installed the drivers and windows continued to load.
"No mass storage device detected"



So swore for a few min's before turning power off and reconnecting power to the old drive, (leaving the new drive in place too).
Left boot sequence as what I'd changed it to (cdrom/scsi/ide0).
And started up. Now, last time I tried this (powering up with bith disks in place), windows wouldn't load. This time it's loaded fine though

So went to my computer to see if the new drive might happen to be showing up there but nope.

So went to disk management and the old drive is shown as disk0 Type = Basic. Status =Healthy (System).

the new drive shows up to! (only at the bottom not at the top) Unknown and not initialized.

So right click and initialize. selected it and next. Now it's asking if I want to convert it to a dynamic disk and this is as far as i've got.

Do I?

Am I wasting my time here? I'm getting the impression I'm going to end up able to use the drive as a second drive only here?

I'd much rather use it as my main drive. I don't mind keeping the old drive in as a second one but it's far too unreliable to use as a main one.

Not really sure what converting to dynamic disk is and if I should select it.