I am currently using a p4s8x asus motherboard. It says that the motherboard supports serial ata so i went ahead and purchased a serial ata harddrive. When i connect the harddrive the pc does not detect n e new hardware. I am not sure exactly what options I would need to change in my bios so ne info would be appreciated. On my motherboard i have 2 SATA slots not sure if one is different than the other. Thank you for your time

You must connect your SATA drive with it jumpered as master on the data cable to the primary (first) SATA header - see your mboard manual! Your bios Setup should be set to detect all drives Auto, by the Auto or LBA method (that's the default). Once you are certain you have that right, if your computer bios is not recognizing the drive at all........ Many recent SATA drives are SATA 2 (SATA 300). If you bought a SATA 2 drive, if your motherboard has a slightly older SATA technology and is just rated SATA (SATA 1; SATA 150), the motherboard chipset and bios may not be capable of detecting a SATA 2 drive, even in SATA 1 mode. In that case the SATA 2 hard drive must have a jumper position available and you must have a jumper installed that sets it to SATA (SATA 1 or SATA 150) mode. Not all SATA 2 drives have that jumper option available - some don't (e.g. some Maxtor), some do (e.g. some Samsung). If you need a drive with that option and the drive you got doesn't have it, you will have to return the drive and get one that has that option, or get a SATA 1 drive.

Its serial ata150 not 2, I am currently trying to reinstall windows and boot up the raid drivers.

It's been ages since I set up my SATA drive on my p4p800. I'm not sure how your board is set up, but for my board, there are two types of SATA connectors...one dedicated for raid only, and the other for non-raid. I have both set-ups in use. Each type has it's dedicated controller. For one type, I couldn't use the hard drive until I formatted the drive in windows. For the other type, I had to format the drives through the controller's utility (I believe it's ctrl-I while booting up...you'll see a prompt flash for less than 1 second, so you have to be fast). I just described the two settings so you can figure out what needs to be done (considering that both your mobo and mine are made by the same manufacturer)

"...I am currently trying to reinstall windows and boot up the raid drivers." Did you already have Windows installed on this SATA drive, or is it still blank? Going by your description, your mboard is not recognizing the SATA drive. Your motherboard bios must recognize your SATA drive - if it doesn't re-installing Windows will not help at all. If that is your case, you must correct that situation first. - your drive must be jumpered and connected properly - see the first paragraph of response 1 - make sure the onboard SATA controller is set to "Enable" in BIOS. - you didn't specify if you have IDE hard drives connected to the mboard as well. If you do, if you want to boot Windows from the SATA drive, you must have the SATA drive before the IDE drive(s) in the boot order in the bios - e.g. floppy first, then CD drive, then SATA If that's not your case and the problem is Windows or Windows Setup is not recognizing your drive, that's a completely different matter. ...... From the FAQ's for p4s8x on the Asus USA web site: Question Why can't I install OS on Promise 20376 connecter with singel SATA or IDE HDD? Even I already make a Promise 20376 driver disk and hit F6 key to upload Promise 20376 driver during Windows XP installation. Answer Please follow the steps below to install Windows XP or Windows 2000 on Promise 20376 connecter with single SATA or IDE HDD: 1.Please make sure the onboard SATA controller has set to "Enable" in BIOS. 2.Please hit "Ctrl" + "F" to enter Promise 20376 RAID BIOS after BIOS POST screen, and choose 1st selection, then hit "Ctrl" + "Y" to define a RAID HDD with single Hard disk, 3. Try to download Promise 20376 driver from ASUS website, and copy all files from Promise folder to an enpty floppy disk. you can download the driver here : http://www.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/misc/ide/pdc20376/pdc20376.zip 4. Plug in the floppy driver disk and boot from Windows XP or Windows 2000 O/S CD, then hit F6 key to upload the driver from floppy disk upon first Windows installation screen, and setup it step by step. After that, you will find that you can install operating system on Promise 20376 connecter with single SATA or IDE HDD. ..... Question Can I just install a Serial ATA HDD on P4S8X and don't build any RAID array? Answer Yes, Serial ATA controller will treat that Serial ATA HDD as "single HDD array". .......

I know this is a late message but I have the same p4s8x motherboard and just ran into the same problem. Some SATA drives need a jumper that limits the drive to 1.5 and most SATA drives don't come with the jumper. The promise SATA controller only supports SATA raid configurations. You have to copy some files from the mobo support cd to a floppy disk, set up the bios to allow a SCSI/ONBOARD ATA Boot device, set up a raid, and finally during XP installation you press F6 to get a prompt for using special disc controllers. Despite what the manual says about needing 2 drives for the best raid configuration you can create a single drive raid. Took me a while to figure out since the manual reads like Japanese stereo instructions. The chapter titled "Using the Promise chip for Raid 0 or 1" explains it all.

My brother installed a recent Promise parallel ATA hard drive Raid controller on his older computer some time ago and I recently took a look at the manual for it. The manual is the same as you describe - confusing - it certainly isn't obvious you can connect just one drive to it, but he managed to do it with the Raid 0 or 1 instructions. The parallel ATA controller card I have used recently is an el-cheapo St Labs A-142 with RAID and a Silicon Image chipset (it works well) - it explains clearly how to install a single drive without needing to install the RAID support. My experience with SATA was with a fairly recent MSI mboard that had only SATA support and RAID built in (also a Silicon Image chipset). After some research I installed a Samsung SATA-2 that had the limiting jumper with the jumper in the limiting position as a single drive, without needing to set up the RAID, going by the reasonable instructions in the MSI manual.