WinXP doesn't recognize SATA HDs

[ASOmegaTron]

Okay, I'm building a new computer and I'm trying to install XP now. I can get the XP Disk to load but when it asks which hard drive to install to, there are two choices, both say "unknown drive". I've tried to use the up and down arrows on the keyboard anyway to see if I can toggle on to either choice but after a few tries I get the blue screen of death. What can I do to get XP to recognize the two SATA Hard drives?

System specs.

Mobo: GigaByte 8ANXP-D
Proc: LGA775 3.2Ghz (retail)
Hard Drives: two 200GB SATA Maxtor w/ 8mb cache OEM (6Y200M0)
Graphics Card: GigaByte GV-RX60X128V (ATI X600XT chip)

The only big thing I've tried is switching which SATA ports I use on the mobo.

[Jarhed7276]

You need to install the SATA drivers. When you first start to install XP it will ask you to press F6 to install SCSI or other drivers. Press F6 and install the SATA drivers.

[dusty825]

I installed a Maxtor in my system also, the disk that came with the hd did not have the latest drivers on it. I had to go to Maxtors site and download the newest ones.
You also need to follow Jarhed's advice.

[Jarhed7276]

I looked up your chipset and it supports SATA natively so there should be a floppy with the SATA drivers that came with the motherboard.

[dusty825]

It would depend on if he bought it retail or a oem package.

[ASOmegaTron]

I don't have a floppy, just the CD. I went to Giga-Byte's website to try to find the driver but the only one they have is the SATA RAID driver and it is 1.6MB, too big to put onto a floppy.

*edit* yeah, motherboard is Retail. Only thing OEM is the 2 HDs.

[Jarhed7276]

Look on the cd that came with the motherboard. There should be a way to extract the drivers to a floppy. You will want to use the Intel SATA drivers rather than the Silicon Image drivers since the SI drivers run through the pci bus rather than the Southbridge. Look for something like Make Disk on the cd to extract the drivers.

[Bizkitkid2001]

You don't need to use a floppy. I think you can use the CD to load hte drivers during the windows installation.

[doddsy]

i'm pretty sure u will need a floppy.

go here try sata controller.

http://www.short-media.com/download.php?dc=46

if memory serves, u need to have the drive files in a folder called XP on the floppy, then save the "textsetup oem" to the flopy but outside the xp folder

soz if you ain't usin sisraid then the link is no good...........

[Jarhed7276]

ASOmegaTron, how we doing? Were you able to bring your system up?

[ASOmegaTron]

Hmm, I'm not having any luck. I've tried adding different drivers to the floppy disk along with their txtsetup.oem file but I must not be copying the correct driver.

What I did after my second post here is I installed XP onto a normal ata-100 drive and downloaded all of the drivers. Now xp can see the two SATA Drives. I believe I can just copy this install of XP onto one of the SATA drives and everything should be coo'. Only problem is, I had something on the ata-100 drive and that is now Drive C and the good XP install is drive letter G. Huh, I can't remember with 100% accuracy whether or not Partition Magic can change the drive letters or not. I'm going to experiment tonight.

On a side note, the temps on my Socket T P4 went from around 45-48 degrees C when I was just running in bios to about 35 Degrees C now that XP is installed, I wonder if this is because of the U-Plus DPS? (or maybe I don't fully comprehend what the DPS is supposed to do hehe )

*edit* I forgot to say thanks for everyone's help at trying to get my computer figured out!