Can't get my Drives to work on new build

[dr_roberts49]

Hey guys, I finally got the rest of my stuff from Newegg yesterday and installed my new ABIT AW8D motherboard. Here's the basic specs.

New Stuff:
ABIT AW8D mobo
Corsair 2x512MB XMS DDR2 800
EVGA GT2600 256DDR3 PCI Express
Rocket 100 ATA PCI card
ANTEC EARTHWATTS 500 power supply (very impressed with this)

Stuff I Had:
Pentium D Smithfield Dual Core @3.28Ghz
Two Maxtor IDE Drives, both 200GB
NEC DVD Burner
MEMOREX DVD Burner
ASPIRE Super Alien all Aluminum Full Tower
Thermaltake Superbeatle cpu fan/heatsink
ViewSonic 19' widescreen LCD
Logitec wireless mouse & keyboard
Creative 5.1 surroundsound speakers
Windows XP Prof.


Anyway, the new mobo comes with only one IDE port and one PCI port. That's why I bought the Rocket card. Reviews I read on the card were good, but they all recommended not connecting the drives to the card until the drivers were loaded.

I hooked up only one of my DVD burners and my primary HD to one cable and connected them to my single IDE port. All case fans were installed, but from experience, I didn't put my case sides back on and will tidy up the cables later to make them pretty. Because of the shortness on the IDE cables, I pulled my HD from the bay in the lower part of my case and placed it on a static bag outside the case.

Computer posted and powered right up. All looked good,went into the BIOS and made my settings. Had troubles with the BIOS recognizing my drives. Rebooted a couple of times with no luck. Finally took out the Rocket card, and now my drives were recognized properly. Set to boot to CD and put in my XP Pro disk.

It went to boot to CD, but then said, "NON SYSTEM DISK. PUT IN SYSTEM DISK AND HIT ENTER. Not matter what I tried, it would not read my disk. The disk is fine, tested it on my 2 other computers. I checked the BIOS, and my drive was not recognized again. I completely powered down, checked all my connections and when I powered up, it would not fully post. Had to reset the CMOS so I could get to the BIOS screen again. This went on the rest of the night. I was getting tired and went to bed. Started over this morning, and same thing. Each time I do a cold start, I have to clear the CMOS to get to the BIOS.


I have to go to work now, so I'm posting this so I can get some suggestions from my TECHIMO friends. This is my first build with PCI Express. I must be missing something. Thanking all in advance. I hope I've explained everything and left nothing out.

Robert

PS
Doing inventory tonight, so I'll be home around midnight. I'm off tomorrow, so it will be a good night to get this machine working.

[elroy]

I don't know about this so I'll just throw it out there. I assume you have an 80 wire IDE cable for the HD. Would an optical drive that is ATA33 going to be happy connected to that cable? I've always had 2 IDE ports and have never done it.

Have you tried booting with just the cd-rom connected? [no HD]

Have you checked settings in bios to be sure it isn't set to use SATA as the boot or main drive? I know you said you set it to boot to the cd-rom but maybe there is another setting.

[Imperion1]

Be sure and have a driver floppy disk for the Rocket card. Have the Rocket card installed in the computer.
In bios:
Advance Bios Features
Under Hard disk boot Priority: Set it to the Add-on card.
First Boot device: Set to cdrom/dvdrom (only for the Windos install).
Second Boot device: Hard drive.
Third boot device, you can disable this.

Under Integrated Peripherals.
Under On-Chip IDE Device.
IDE Bus Master: Enabled
Onchip IDE controller: Enabled.
Onchip SATA Mode: AHCI
SATA Raid Rom: Enabled
Onchip SATA: Auto

Under Onboard PCI Device.
Serial ATA Controller: Enabled
SATA Raid Mode: Disabled
SATA Option Rom: Disabled. Only enable this if you have an SATA hard drive installed.

Have 1 hard drive installed on the Rocket card.
Boot the system with the Windows OS cd in the drive, press the Space Bar when asked to press any key to boot from cd.
During the install, it will ask to press F6 to install additional drivers.
Press F6, have the Rocket Card driver floppy in the floppy drive.
Windows will pull up a list of drivers on the floppy, pick the correct driver. Then away it goes.
Be sure to remove the floppy when Windows is getting ready to restart, the first time.
After windows is installed, change your boot order in bios. First Boot Device: Hard drive, Second: cdrom.

See how this works out.

[dr_roberts49]

I've thought about that. I can't remember the last time I ran an optical drive and a hard drive on the same cable and IDE port. Windows 95? I've always kept them on seperate cables and ports. My two hard drives on IDE one and my opticals on IDE two.

The newer boards are all leaning towards SATA. I've got six SATA ports on this new board. I'll be going that way pretty soon, but right now, I have two nearly new IDE drives. Thanks for you're input.

Robert

[sr71000]

you can mix optical and hard drives on the same cable just fine! The fact that you're having to clear the cmos every time sounds like a mobo issue to me! Try replacing the cmos battery first though (maybe it is weak and because of power issues it's corrupting the bios?) It's a stretch but worth a shot i guess! For a few bucks, why not! After that..i'd be calling newegg for an rma!

[dr_roberts49]

Thank you, Imperion 1 for your excellent advice. I'll get right to this in the morning. Expecting a lot of rain tomorrow, so it will be a good day to stay indoors. I'll let everyone know the outcome.

Robert

[usslindstrom]

Sr's right. You can have an optical drive on the same cable as your HD.

It's just not recommended due to both items having to sync at the same clock. So you'll basically be cutting your HD's feet out from under him.

It'll work with no issues though, if that's what your asking.

[dr_roberts49]

Sr71000, I'm going to take yours and Imperion1's advice. If all that fails, I'll contact Newegg for an RMA. This will be a first for me. Any idea how long this process takes? Sure hope it's the battery I waited so long the get all these parts together. Money has been a real issue this spring. My youngest daughter is leaving for her first trip to Walt Disney World next week with her high school band for several days. It took a bite out of my wallet, but she will have a blast. That's worth every penny to me.

Robert

[dr_roberts49]

Imperion1,

As suggested by another member, I've replaced the CMOS battery, and I'm ready to do the steps you suggested in your earlier post. I have a couple of questions for you.

The Rocket card only came with a CD, but I can copy the XP drivers to a floppy. Can I also copy the files I need to another CD instead? The reason I ask this, is because I'm not certain that the floppy drive I have on my computer works anymore. I've not used it in years, and I've had it since Windows 3.1. The last time I used it, was about two years ago to make a couple of network disks. I guess I can find out by giving it a try. I can always borrow one from one of my kid's computers if it doesn't work.

The other question, is when I was reading the user reviews on Newegg about the Rocket card, there were a few comments about not attaching any hard drives until the drivers were loaded. One user said it trashed his hard drive and he had to reinstall Windows. I'm not really concerned, because I have all my stuff backed up and need to make a clean install anyway. Also, not everyone made this comment, possibly because they followed the procedure you suggested to me.

The same member that suggested changing my CMOS battery also mentioned that if I keep having to clear the CMOS to get it to post, there might be another problem related directly to the motherboard. This motherboard was given to me by a friend. I'm building a computer for him. He didn't order the right motherboard for his 2 Core Duo. This ABIT AW8D is the only 975X motherboard that doesn't support the 2 Core Duos. It does support my Pentium D, so he decided to give it to me (for building him his computer) rather than send it back. He ordered the ABIT AB9 Pro and just brought it over to me yesterday. This AW8D board was never used, because I read the specs and told him it wouldn't work with his processor which he already had.

He said if the board was bad he would RMA it back to Newegg (he bought it about 3 weeks ago) and get me another. I offered to pay the shipping and although I like what I've read about the AW8D, I'm thinking about having him order a different board that I'll be able to use a 2 Core Duo in when I'm ready. Anyway, I would rather this motherboard work right now, so wish me luck. Thanks again for the info.

Robert

[dr_roberts49]

SR71000, I replaced the CMOS battery and that did the trick. Looks like I'm one step closer to getting this machine running today. Working on the drive recognition right now. Thanks for the advice.

Robert