[nan0_man]

OK!

Previously running a FAT32 WD Eide 60GB on IDE1. Shutdown,attached my new 80gb sata drive to sata1.
Fromatted the drive NTFS in windows, was recognised as 76gb...Cool.
I wanted to creat 2 partitions and copy OS and files from original so I used a 98SE startup disk to boot into dos with only the sata HDD attached to MOBO. Answered yes to large disc support - everything ok BUT, fdisk says the size of the disc is 12435MB?? when I tried to allocate 25MB as the primary DOS partition it said "exceeds amount avaliable", which isnt right. It went throught the "verifying drive integrity" then I shut down. Now windows cant even see the drive in 'my computer' allthough it shows up as the PRIMARY channel during boot-up. I have installed the SATA drivers from the disk and installed a TV card, other than that...no changes to hard/software recently.

Any Ideas on what I should do?

[caddyg1]

I do believe that if you Initialize a drive using USB or SATA it assigns it as a simple volume and you cant partition it after that.. Best suggestion is using an XP boot disk to repartition and format on the Primary IDE chain….. then before it installs its files reboot and you should have a proper partitioned drive.

[nan0_man]

I cant seem to find how to create, or where to D/L a 'XP Boot Disk' from.

SOMEONE!!!

[nan0_man]

C'mon plz,...

UPDATE..

My booting is very iffy. I'm getting hangs on windows log in/sometimes no keyboard, sometimes hangs on detecting ide drives. s'damn weird...
My Compter recognises both drives during a GOOD boot, but in windows, I don't see the NTFS disc at all...hlp!?

[kct2]

The problem with the new 80gb drive is you formatted the entire disk when you formatted with NTFS, so there is no room for a FAT partition. Also, the win98 bootdisk will NOT be able to read the NTFS partition.

I have no idea why you would want a 25MB DOS partition, please explain. Also, you obviously have Win2k or XP if you formatted in NTFS, so why are you using a win98 bootdisk at all?

I would boot back into windows with your 60gb drive IDE drive with the sata drive attached, and go into Computer Managment->Disk Managment, and reformat the 80gb drive with NTFS (or FAT32 if you wish), and forget about fdisk and bootdisks.

The drive manufactures utility should have a Drive Copy function, you might want to give that a try; because you can't do a normal copy and have the OS work.

EDIT - Thinking about it - you should just do a fresh install onto the new drive, if you want that to be your boot drive. Then copy any data from the old drive. You will need to reinstall programs, etc. But you will have a better running system.

[nan0_man]

what about all my video's...ok hold on ...I can copy those after I have installed the OS...right?

Thanks for the indepth answer dude...helped mucho.

One thing...how do I get into computer management?

[kct2]

Originally posted by nan0_man
what about all my video's...ok hold on ...I can copy those after I have installed the OS...right?

Yep - just copy them after the install. You will need to change the boot order in BIOS so the computer will boot off the new SATA drive.

Originally posted by nan0_man

One thing...how do I get into computer management?

If you are going to do a complete re-install, there is no need to. But, to get there in the future, go to CONTROL PANEL -> ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS -> COMPUTER MANAGEMENT...

[nan0_man]

Alright, cool, thanks man.

[don256us]

Originally posted by nan0_man
I cant seem to find how to create, or where to D/L a 'XP Boot Disk' from.

SOMEONE!!!

FYI. The WinXP CD is the boot disk. Just set your MB to boot from CD. Here is a link for a M$ WinXP Pro SP1 floppy disk but this is NOT what most people are refering too when they say 'boot' from XP disk.

[nan0_man]

ok, I think its coz:
1, I didnt have it set in bios to boot sata.
2, Need to install 3rd party (SATA) drivers before xp install.

Problem is now...I read that i need to put the sata drivers that came with my mobo onto a floppy, well files come to 1.25mb and wont fit on the disk. Should I copy half to one and half to another floppy, andtry that?

[kct2]

Originally posted by nan0_man
[BProblem is now...I read that i need to put the sata drivers that came with my mobo onto a floppy, well files come to 1.25mb and wont fit on the disk. Should I copy half to one and half to another floppy, andtry that? [/B]

What kind of floppy are you using? Most floppies format to 1.38mb, so there should be no problem...

My NF7-S came with a sata driver floppy disk, so check around and see if you have that. You can also download the drivers from the silicon image website. I have done this a number of times and I know they fit onto a floppy.

EDIT - I just checked the file from the SI website, and it is only 245kb, so I'm not sure if you are trying to copy the correct thing onto the floppy...

[nan0_man]

ok, I was trying to copy the .exe and everything else from the CD. Did a search and found which files I actually needed, and copied just those.

ANYWAY, got it working, XP is now installed, still getting some booting hangs almost every other boot. I'm going to update windows and install all my drivers/software onto the SATA and see if they still happen.

Thanks so much for your replies guys!

[kct2]

If the computer is not POSTing, then updating drivers won't really do anything. Where exactly does the boot process hang?

[nan0_man]

At first it would hang at "Detecting IDE drives", now its a hang at the screen where i click my name to get into windows. I get a light on the mouse but the pointer is frozen. I have been restarting and it'll work, then the next time it'll hang.

Any ideas?

[don256us]

If it hangs at POST, and the point that it hangs seems to change from try to try, I would suspect the RAM.

[nan0_man]

really?..never had any problems with it before tho...