how to set up a SATA harddrive on the nf7-s?

[login211]

i'm planning on buying a WD 120gb sata harddrive, will i be able to partition the hd using fdisk?

should i just boot up using a boot disk, create partitions, install xp... ?

thanks

btw i'm using a custom bios 19 with latest sata drivers...

[K1ll1nT1m3]

That board has onboard SATA, so I dont see any problems with that. Its really going to depend more on the BIOS so I cant say for sure. I would think you should be able to partition with the XP cd if nothing else works.

[Deathknight]

The xp install is all you need, fdisk is a thing of the past ;)

To install a sata drive pop in the xp disk and boot up. When setup starts there will be a message at the bottom at the very start that says something about pressing F6 to install third party raid or scsi drivers. When you see that message press F6. After the setup loads some more files it will prompt you to press S to install a drive. Hit S and it will prompt you for the driver disk (came with the motherboard). Select the driver off of the list and setup will continue as normal.

The next step in the setup is to partition and format your drive. Its all menu driven so you should figure it out no problem ;)

[K1ll1nT1m3]

True. I was not really thinking fdisk, I was thinking more like Partition Magic. Plus, I had problems with the OEM BIOS in mine. After partitioning and starting the XP install, the board couldnt find the new OS files on the HDD after rebooting ( due to the SATA0 or SATA1 not being a bootable drive ). To get XP to finish the install, the SATA drive had to be mapped as a IDE drive ( in BIOS ). With an email to Gigabyte and a short wait for a new BIOS this was fixed though.

[Ducker]

btw i'm using a custom bios 19 with latest sata drivers...

Are you refurring to the "hacked" bios 19, or the new bios just released from Abit? If you are using the "hacked" bios 19 to take advantage of the newest SATA drivers, you may want to just update to the offically just released bios 19 from Abit. I think it was just released last week. It has the new SATA drivers in it also. You'll need to go to Abit's web page & download the new Flashmenu first. They recomend not using the old Flashmenu to install bios 19.

[OSUmaxx]

Originally posted by Ducker


Are you refurring to the "hacked" bios 19, or the new bios just released from Abit? If you are using the "hacked" bios 19 to take advantage of the newest SATA drivers, you may want to just update to the offically just released bios 19 from Abit. I think it was just released last week. It has the new SATA drivers in it also. You'll need to go to Abit's web page & download the new Flashmenu first. They recomend not using the old Flashmenu to install bios 19.

If this BIOS comes with the new SATA drivers, is there a way to burn them to CD and install them off of that? I'm asking because I don't have a disk drive and I'm about to try this.

[vejita-sama]

Newbie semi-OT question, you can run 2 IDE and 2 SATA HDs at the time off the NF7-S right?

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by vejita-sama
Newbie semi-OT question, you can run 2 IDE and 2 SATA HDs at the time off the NF7-S right?
right

[login211]

Originally posted by Deathknight
The xp install is all you need, fdisk is a thing of the past ;)

To install a sata drive pop in the xp disk and boot up. When setup starts there will be a message at the bottom at the very start that says something about pressing F6 to install third party raid or scsi drivers. When you see that message press F6. After the setup loads some more files it will prompt you to press S to install a drive. Hit S and it will prompt you for the driver disk (came with the motherboard). Select the driver off of the list and setup will continue as normal.

The next step in the setup is to partition and format your drive. Its all menu driven so you should figure it out no problem ;)

k thanks, i think it shouldn't be a problem...

i think i may have to use fdisk if i do NOT reinstall the os... but i know that i eventually will...

also how should i split up the harddrive? i know 120gb for 1 drive is way too big, i'm told it takes way to long to format/defrag so i'm thinking maybe 3x40gb OR 4x30gb partitions?

---

i'm using equito's bios 19 which already has the latest sata drivers...

[login211]

Originally posted by Deathknight
The xp install is all you need, fdisk is a thing of the past ;)

To install a sata drive pop in the xp disk and boot up. When setup starts there will be a message at the bottom at the very start that says something about pressing F6 to install third party raid or scsi drivers. When you see that message press F6. After the setup loads some more files it will prompt you to press S to install a drive. Hit S and it will prompt you for the driver disk (came with the motherboard). Select the driver off of the list and setup will continue as normal.

The next step in the setup is to partition and format your drive. Its all menu driven so you should figure it out no problem ;)

k thanks, i think it shouldn't be a problem...

i think i may have to use fdisk if i do NOT reinstall the os... but i know that i eventually will...

also how should i split up the harddrive? i know 120gb for 1 drive is way too big, i'm told it takes way to long to format/defrag so i'm thinking maybe 3x40gb OR 4x30gb partitions?

---

i'm using equito's bios 19 which already has the latest sata drivers...

[Deathknight]

If you just add the new drive into a system with an existing HD with an existing install of windows there is still no need to fdisk. Just open administrative tools, computer management, disk management and you see all your existing partitions and all unpartitioned space which you can partition and format as you wish.

Personally I tend not to run a ton of partitions. First off I think small partitions make defrags harder not easier. Having large chunks of free space makes it much more likely that you can completly defrag a partition. The other problem I always see with many partitions is that no matter how you try to plan it out, one of the partitions runs low on space. Sure you can use something like partition magic to repartion but I would rather just have big partitions in the first place.

[login211]

i've always hated having many partitions myself for that very reason but this is with my current 30gb hd, i've always feared my main 10gb os partition will run out but it hasn't happened yet...

do you guys think 10gb should be enough for the OS partition? i install everything to d, c is just for the OS stuff and ms office... out of the 10gb on my C: i'm only using up 2gb....

perhaps it should be 5gb only?

i think i'll split the remainder in 1/2 only...

btw i've heard of ppl corrupting there sata harddrives when overclocking too high specially on nf2 boards.... i don't think i'll be pushing for 250fsb but i'd like to get to ~220 are there any precautions i should take?

thanks