Thanks for all the replies guys. Ok, to answer a few of the questions, in practical use, yes the SATA drive is transparent with respect to the OS, and you can plug in a SATA drive to a system running a windows setup and windows will see it no probs. However if you want to install windows to that drive (I use XP as my example) you need to install SCSI type controller drivers for the setup to see the drive and be able to install to it. This is why I think perhaps you need some sort of SCSI type driver again for dos to see the drive? x86, Im not quite sure what you mean when you say about the DOS 8 boot disk and not affecting the OS. Do you mean I can have DOS installed on thr same drive as XP and it will not affect the XP installation or that the SATA drive should be transparent to the OS? Im using DOS 6.22, however I will now try the DOS 8 boot disk :-) Im hoping this is how it will work, have DOS 6.22 installed on a partition, boot to it using a dos boot disk and it will see only the dos partition where DOS is installed. The dos partition is over the 1024 cylinder boundary tho, so will this affect the ability of dos to see it? Should I have the DOS partition before the XP partition and make it hidden so it doesnt interfere with XP or will it also be hidden to DOS and therefore inaccessible? In terms of the way the BIOS works, the drives are recognised in two different places during bootup, in the same way as if you have a controller card installed. The BIOS sees the normal PATA drives, whilst the screen which comes directly after the intial POST sees the SATA drives where you are also given the option to make a RAID array (only one drive so no RAID array for me). In the BIOS you can select the PATA drive to boot off like normal HDD0, HDD1 etc etc, but to boot off the SATA drive you select SCSI as the boot device. If you have no OS on any of PATA drives or no drives installed there, the mobo will automatically boot off the SATA drive (not sure how booting works with 2 HD's with only SCSI as the SATA boot option not something like SCSI1, SCSI2?!? By the way, there is only one HB per SATA connector, and 2 SATA connectors in total). The OS, as I said earlier will see SATA drives with no problems. Man this is far more complicated than it should be :-) I'll try the DOS8 boot disk and see if that can see the SATA partition...

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Hi As you say the SATA drive is recognised as a bootable device, therefore if the drive was SYSed from DOS, DOS should boot from it "theoritically", I suggested a DOS8 boot disk or even a W98OEM one from www.bootdisk.com as these versions are more complient with modern hardware etc. If you want a full dual boot, install DOS first on its own partition then install XP which will create a boot loader. DOS and XP are both operating systems in their own right so do not interfere with each other. I think you want to put the DOS files on a sepaerate partition and use a boot disk to point to this, this is no problem, just change config.sys and autoexec.bat to point to the drive letter where the files are. I have done this with DOS on a USB Compact Flash Card and booted of a modified DOS6.xx boot floppy.

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Tried booting into DOS off the DOS boot disk you make in XP (WinME disk as x86 points out above) and it seems to see the DOS partition on the SATA drive fine, so I think we are away, Im assuming I'll now be able to just install DOS 6.22 to the partition once Ive booted off the DOS 8 boot disk :-)

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Do you have the partition FAT32 formatted?? DOS up to 7.ox will only install on FAT16, DOS 7.1x and 8 will install on FAT32. Unfortunately XP only gives FAT32 option in O/S, do not know why as XP can install on FAT16. See if you can change FAT on that partition with a W98OEM boot disk www.bootdisk.com, though be careful not to destroy your partitions!! Another alternative is to use a W98 CD and extract the DOS, if you go to http://www.mwpms.uklinux.net/opage4.htm it list files at bottom of page which are changed from version 6.xx. Have fun!

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IF IT IS FAT32 There maybe a solution if you want to use DOS 6.xx, DRDOS have a DRFAT.SYS which enables drives up to FAT32 up to 2gig drives to be recognised, I have found a DOS boot floppy WinImage download with the files on at: http://www.phoenix.com/en/customer+services/imagecast/download/dr-dos/default1.htm. Alternatively there is an OpenDOS/DRDOS beta wip update to recognise FAT32 drives at http://www.drdosprojects.de, though would need a copy of this DOS which is available

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Option 1: Partition Magic might be your best bet if you don't want to lose any data. Partition Magic will let your resize existing partitions without data loss. You can then add a partition after the resize. If you don't mind wiping everything out, try option 2. Option 2: Use the WinXP CD to boot to setup. You might need to copy the SATA controller drivers off of your motherboard's CD to a floppy and remember to include the WinXP folder. Place the *.inf file for the SATA controller outside as well as inside of the WinXP directory on drive A:. Remember to have the txtsetup.oem file. There may also be a file that's only a few bytes in size. It might be called something like "Silicon". Promise's Ultra100 drivers have a file called "Ultra" that Win2000 setup looks for. Setup cannot proceed if you don't have the file I'm talking about. When you boot off the CD, press F6 and put the floppy in drive A:. Windows will tell you to put the manufacturer provided driver disk in drive A:. You'll receive confirmation from setup that the SATA controller's driver will be loaded by setup. Once setup runs, you can create the partitions you need. Set up a FAT partition less than or equal to 2 GB. Then setup up your Windows XP partition.

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well i cant get my hdd to be seen by the os which is xp and there are no options in the bios just a jumper on the mobo which is a a7n8x-deluxe these manufacturers need there arses kickin makin it this bloody complicated any body help me plz really stuck ukjamie

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This is little crayzy if you do not have an history diskdrive.. How do a fix it without an diskdrive..because windows only ask for an put in an disk.. the problem is that i do not have an diskdrive and im not going to bye anyone ether. Anybody have an idé what to do? "When you boot off the CD, press F6 and put the floppy in drive A:. Windows will tell you to put the manufacturer provided driver disk in drive A:. You'll receive confirmation from setup that the SATA controller's driver will be loaded by setup."

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I just finished setting up my A7N8X Deluxe with a RAID stripeset using 2 SATA 80 GB Seagates (and a 120 GB ATA as backup!!!). 1. Get the SATA drives of the ASUS CD and put them on a floppy. Look in \drivers\sata... on the CD... ;o) 2. Either a) Boot on the WinXP CD, b) Boot on a Win98 diskette with CD support or c) Add a temporary ATA HD with the XP install files (which I did since I could not get DOS read my XP CD correctly for some reason). 3. Run WINNT.exe in the \i386 dir. 4. When it says "Press F6 to..." do it and then specify "Addition driver" etc... 5. Now WinXP boots and you may select the drive on which to create/delete partitions and install XP. If you format the SATA drive first from DOS (you DONT need any DOS sata drivers except the one in BIOS!) then note this is NOT possible above a certain size (32 GB it seems). Also my Win2K couldn't format a 62 GB FAT32 partition. This is not a problem unless you for some weird reason wants to use FAT32. I have the 120 GB ATA drive besides my RAID volume. So my install was on D: - not C: If you want everything to be on a C: drive then simply format a 4 GB DOS partition under DOS, disconnect any ATA HD, install XP to the SATA drive (which should then be C:), let XP convert this 4 GB DOS partition to NTFS and finally run Partition Magic Email me (-info2@descentia.net-) if you still have trouble.. ;o) Good luck!

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Hi, i am also trying to put win xp onto my serial ata drive, motherboards K7N2 DELTA-ILSR and hdds DiamondMax Plus9 120GB SATA150. I hit F6 and select the driver for the sata promise controller for win xp and setup appears to loads it, however during the next stage of setup win xp does not recognise the hdd as unpartitioned space, only my ide drives are recognised. This is strange, as the separate sata bios recognises that the hdd is there :S Has anyone else had this problem and can anyone help me? Thanks :-)

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I wish to make a bootable CD-ROM with tools. So I must prepare a floppy with DOS (Me) do you know if i'll have to include drivers to "see" my Serial ATA Hard Disk (not NTFS of course) ? Then maybe I'll add Winternals drivers to see NTFS partitions ?

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