Does vista recognize sata drive

Question

Hi all, I just got my 9200 and wanted to start clean so I formatted vista but I am unsure on how to tell if Windows recognizes the drive properly. Please advise and thanks in advance for any replies. Ps... if it didn't recognize, how do I correct?

PETER345 · Answer

I don't have Vista, but I suspect if you try to install Vista and it finds your HDs, you are fine.

If not, you have two options (which I have not tried with Vista):

1. Set the RAID mode to ATA
2. Load the SATA drivers when installing (with XP you press F6 early in the install process).

So, I would try the install first and see how it goes.

Peter

gunned · Answer

In the bios it says onboard sata not present, the drive is in port o and raid and ata etc is on. I'm not sure if that is right or not.

PETER345 · Answer

Something doesn't make sense here. The drive should be recognized by the BIOS if it was working before and you didn't change the hardware or BIOS setup.

When you go into the BIOS setup for the drives, does it show any drives? If not (as your message suggested), you need to figure that out first. Either it is not enabled (try enabling it) or the connector has come loose or the drive has failed.

Peter

gunned · Answer

In the device mgr it shows as the disk drive but I am unable to enable write caching. Perhaps I didn't format correctly. I wanted to delete that d drive restore partition and maybe I did something wrong. Will it say sata drive in the device mgr???

gunned · Answer

The boot sequence is #1 wdc320 gb,       #2 onboard sata        (not present). The drive appears to be recognized under port 0 etc.

PETER345 · Answer

@gunned wrote:

The boot sequence is #1 wdc320 gb, #2 onboard sata (not present).

The drive appears to be recognized under port 0 etc.

Do you have a single hard drive? If so, disable the second one. If you have two, then there is a problem with the second one.

Peter

PETER345 · Answer

@gunned wrote:

In the device mgr it shows as the disk drive but I am unable to enable write caching. Perhaps I didn't format correctly. I wanted to delete that d drive restore partition and maybe I did something wrong. Will it say sata drive in the device mgr???

If write caching is not enabled then something is wrong. Normally, HDs have write caching enabled whether you like it or not. Formatting should not affect this.

I don't think Windows cares will indicate SATA or not. Basically, it doesn't care.

I don't have any more suggestions for you.

Maybe you should take this to the Vista forum. It might be an OS issue.

Peter

Message Edited by PETER345 on 03-04-2007 01:52 PM

gp-se · Answer

you using the Intel driver or Microsoft driver? when I use the intel matrix storage manager I cannot enable write caching\advanced performance, well I can click them both to enable but once I restart it doesn't show them as enabled. However with the native microsoft driver I can enable write caching and advanced performance without any issues.

gunned · Answer

using just the default, I formatted and erased the partition, which is what i wanted but that's when either i missed something. It does recognize the drive in the device mgr however. so perhaps it is installed correctly. The bios iswhat says that the sata is not present yet it fdoes recognize it there as well. When installing windows do you have to install the drivers when prompted or do you just let windows install the default drivers if needed?

gp-se · Answer

in vista i used the default microsoft native drivers that are on the vista cd. With XP I used the intel drivers from intel's website and hit f6 during the install.

gunned · Answer

At this point I'm unsure if I did it the correct way when I did a clean install of vista. Thanks for the info.

Storage, Drives & Media

Does vista recognize sata drive

Was this post helpful?