Heya!
I recenly purchased all the components to get myself a new computer on my desk. After putting them all together, all seem to work fine w/ the exception of a WinXP error (posted in WinXP forum) and SATA problem. I have my SATA plugged into the mobo. It shows up in the POST when the computer is botting up. This is a single drive, not a RAID configuration. When botting from CD to install WinXP, it tells me there is no HDD present. When I pop my old HDD back in (IDE Ultra ATA/100) it detects it as the primary master and boots into windows. My SATA hdd (still plugged in) is not showing up from within windows. I was wondering if it's required to have at least two SATA drives to make a RAID configuration or if using just one as the primary (and only HDD) in my system would work just fine. Any help would be much appreciated!

- Shigun

You can use a single SATA drive just fine. There are two things you need to do to use the drive with Windows:

1. Attach the drive to the SATA port. Boot your machine and enter the SATA controller BIOS (CTRL-F for Promise controllers). Set up the drive.

2. When you start Windows XP setup, press F6 when prompted (at the very beginning) to load driver support for your SATA controller. You will need a floppy disk with the controller driver. It should be smooth sailing from there.

Thank You. It appears that I do need to load drivers right at the beginning. I did a bit more research and found a page on Seagate's website that discusses the issue.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/sata_detect.html

When I get tonight I'll give it a shot and post how it goes. :)

All worked out fine! Copied the SATA drivers from the CD that came w/ the mobo to a floppy, and it was smooth sailing from there.