System won't boot from harddrive

[TomD22]

I have just finished building a new PC, and installed windows (xp home OEM)on it. After the installation, it wanted to restart the computer before finishing the rest of the process (registration, etc). So i let it, but the comp won't boot from the harddrive. It is a SATA drive. I have checked the boot order in the BIOS, and it is floppy, harddrive, CD drive. I can hear it check the floppy drive, and then it says it is checking the CD drive and that's where it stops. It doesn't even seem to be trying to boot from the harddrive at all.

The drive is a Seagate Barracuda. The motherboard is a gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 nForce 4.

One thing i should note, is that further up on the screen where it tries to boot, it says 'checking for master harddrive SMART capability.....None'.

Anyway, i'm at a loss. As far as i know the drive is connected right, and it must be working OK to a certain extent, as the windows install CD can see it, can see the partition it made on it, and can see that it has installed windows on it. So the drive itself or cable i don't think can be at fault.

It therefore seems to me that whatever part of the computer it is that generates those first few white text-on black backround screens, prior to booting windows (i'm a newbie to this, you can tell) can't find or won;t use the harddrive.

So, does anyone have any ideas of suggestions, please?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

 

[BASSMASTER]

Do you have the drivers for your SATA controller, they should have come with the motherboard on a floppy. While installing XP, the installation should pause and ask you for RAID or SATA drivers, at which point you would insert the floppy disk.

 

[TomD22]

My OEM had SP2 on it, which should have SATA drivers. And anyway, as i said, the windows drive partition and install went fine. So that means it should have the drivers, right? I did create a SATA driver floppy, thinking i might need it. So if the fact windows installed OK is not evidence that it has the drivers, say, and i'll try using it. Tommorrow, though.

EDIT: i don;t mean wait 'till tommorrow to tell me, tho . I'll be online for a bit yet. But i can't actually try anything with the comp. 'till then.

 

[BASSMASTER]

I've read some articles here and there about certain SATA controllers that Windows XP has issues with, where the install goes o.k but then the problems occur when you boot up. Try setting your boot order to just the hard drive.......the SATA drive does show up correctly in the BIOS right??

 

[Brentb2607]

1.)Ok get the drivers for the SATA HDD put them on a floppy.

2.)Then insert the XP installation disk.

3.) Press F6 at the Setup screen to load third-party drivers.

Also the fact that it is an "OEM" installation CD could be part of the problem. Windows XP has 64 different Licences that are based on different Hardware configurations of common PC's, so I have heard! If this is 100% FACT then it could be the problem. Now if even knows what im talking about or knows if its incorrect please let me know. This is just some topic of discussion over windows at school. So I could have been given some pretty bad info because, I am very interested if wrong what the 64 different key configurations are for!

 

[TomD22]

I've read some articles here and there about certain SATA controllers that Windows XP has issues with, where the install goes o.k but then the problems occur when you boot up. Try setting your boot order to just the hard drive.......the SATA drive does show up correctly in the BIOS right??

Well, to be honest i'm not sure it does. I'm a complete newbie to this, but as far as i can tell, the BIOS can find one master IDE drive (the CD drive), and that's it. But i may be looking in the wrong place...would a SATA harddrive show up somewhere else, somewhere specific?

 

[BASSMASTER]

Theres your problem, SATA drives are not IDE drives, so if your boot order is set to boot from IDE that explains why it's not working. I don't know which BIOS you have, but you need to find the part of your BIOS where it tells you what kindof hardware you have, it should recognzie the type, and size of your SATA drive. It should be set to AutoDetect for detecting drives.


If it does recognize it, you need to go back into your boot order and make sure that it's trying to boot from the SATA drive, not an IDE drive.

 

[TomD22]

Theres your problem, SATA drives are not IDE drives, so if your boot order is set to boot from IDE that explains why it's not working. I don't know which BIOS you have, but you need to find the part of your BIOS where it tells you what kindof hardware you have, it should recognzie the type, and size of your SATA drive. It should be set to AutoDetect for detecting drives.


If it does recognize it, you need to go back into your boot order and make sure that it's trying to boot from the SATA drive, not an IDE drive.

Yeah, i think this then may be the problem. My BIOS seems fairly simple, and doesn't have all that many menus to go through, but i'm fairly sure that there's nothing where it's finding the right drive....so any suggestions now, please ?