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Hi,
I bought brand new from a shop.. a 1Tb maxtor diamondmax 22 sata hard drive.
Windows just will not install it, saying it can't find a driver (didn't think 1 was needed for hdd's?).. I have tried maxtors website, and countless driver sites with no success.
I must admit, I am soooo peeeved that a company like maxtor sell drives without a driver, plus do not supply drivers on their website.
I have so far spent 6 hours searching for a way to get this pos to be installed, that I'm ready to launch it through a window.
I must admit, there is a setting in the bios (to make it bootable or not, so it's recognised in bios), BUT THATS IT.
Windows cannot find a driver, and nor can I, so how the hell am i supposed to get it going?
I completely built a new pc from scratch, and I had to install windows to a ide drive to get it going. And nothing i try finds a way to get this sata drive going.
What can I do now? (Apart from mailing the waste of money to maxtor together with a 2 week old kipper).
Is there another SATA harddrive installed to that PC?
If not, have you installed the latest service pack?
Because windows xp pro sp1 did not support SATA harddrives, but SP3 does.
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Hi paul,
No, there is no other sata drive installed.
This is te first time I have ever had a sata drive, so admittidly, I didn't know what was coming.
At the same time, this m/b is new as I am used to the old methods before "dual core", so I am really lost here lol.
If it helps... the m/b is a gigabyte m61pme-s2.
Bios does see it, and windows see's it. but kkeps telling me it cannot install it.
I'm using it as a data drive directly plugged into the m/b, I don't wish to have it as the OS.
When I googled for drivers, there was none I could find, although I did manage to install a "raid" controller driver, but it till doesn't show up in windows.
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Oh, sorry I forgot....
When building/installing my new pc, It is fully updated with sp3, and any more updates needed, There's no more windows updates available now lol.
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Sorry, my anger is stopping me from placing correct info. Windows "is" seeing the drive, but it just isn't installing it.
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There is no need to 'install' a hard drive, but it must be partitioned and formatted. Go to the Disk Manager and initialize/partition and format it. Then 'My Computer' will see it.
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As was stated above, you need to install the SATA controller drivers. They should be on the motherboard CD. If not, get them from the motherboard site. Just install them and then Windows should allow the use of the drive. Look for SATA/RAID drivers on the CD.
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Thanks Othehill,
I will look at the site now, and report back :o
)
hope to have some luck lol
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Response #3
"It is fully updated with sp3, and any more updates needed"I didn't think that XP with service pack 2 or 3 needed SATA drives loaded. Wrong?
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Nope,
I used my cd that came with the m/b, but i still have no sata drive recognised in windows. it is definataly seen when booting up, because i see it myself upon booting up (I don't know what you call the gumf while booting up lol).
so all I can say is that bios sees it, but xp doesn't. I did install what the website told me to, but still nothing in windows.
Ironicly.....if it helps... the control panel "add hardware" does see the drive, and also says the device is working perfectly. but that is the only reference to the drive. because if I open "my computer" there is no such drive lol.
I am starting to believe I have been ripped off. what a waste of money I couldnt afford to lose grrrrrrr
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Are you 'sure' that the Disk Manager doesn't see the drive???
XP does have a habit (bug?) of losing (not seeing) drives. Do you have another system that you can try the drive on?
Try booting up in safe mode and then normally.
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Thankfully, I am pretty good with pc's as I always build my own lol.
Yes the disc/k manager does "not" see the drive, yet it is still seen in bootup.
windows explorer does not see it either, but the control panel "add hardware" DOES see the drive. while windows is loaded, explorer (my computer) does "not" see the drive, therefore i cannot even access it.do sata drives cause this much hassle??? remind me never ever ever to buy 1 ever again! lol
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Basically, the hard drive is totally non existant or available to "use", yet at the windows level it does exist. so probably like many readers of this post, it is confusing how, at the hardware recognition level it is there, but confusing how windows has no knowledge of it's existance.
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Note that I said in my last post that XP does sometimes fail to recognize perfectly good drives. With the same symptoms that you have.
A drive will not be seen in My Computer or Windows Explorer until it is partitioned and formatted.
Try it on another system if you can.
Xp has also been known to corrupt drives. If the drive is non returnable, try running the manufacturer's write zero utility on it, and maybe a diagnostic.
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hi aquis,
I wish I was able to test it on another system, but I'm not able to. you see, the system I bought has the only power supply to a sata drive. I do have 4 more pc's but not 1 of them has a sata power supply, so i cannot try it on another system, unless i transfer the power supply also.
But if I "do" transfer the power supply, I am going to transfer the system to an identical sytem, because I was a good boy, and made every pc in my network identical lol. I only did it to make sure I had no difference with hardware issues (I hope it worked lol.)
All 4 of my pc's are completley identical, apart from the xp licence number. My theory was that I would only have to remember the 1 setup lol.
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I think I am going to accept that i was sold a duff drive, and i'm going to have to try my luck at getting a refund on this drive.
damnnn what a dissapointmet, even more so with the strict rules we have here in uk with duff drives grrr. i think I may have to accept that I got burnt buying a pos drive.
Thank you all for trying to help me solve my issue.
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Are you certain you have gone into Control Panel > Admin Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. The drive does not appear in the lower right panel? If the Find new Hardware wizard knows the drive is there then Disk Management should see it. The option to partition & format is accessed by rightclick.
The only other thing I could think of would be to boot into BIOS and set the SATA drive in IDE mode. That option should be there. This may resolve your problem
Goin' Fishin' (Some day)
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Go to maxtor and download their drive utility program and set it to the media that can be used to boot from the utillity...floppy? or CD?
Remove your operating system drive and boot to the utility program strictly with the maxtor drive in place. Then let the utility set up the drive to be formated and partitioned as you would like...You will need only one partition for the drive to then be seen in disc management and can be formated through windows after you put it back as you want it!
It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats on the belief of personal change---
yet they remain disadvantaged.
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Many thanks, I shall try that and post back soon. for the time being i put the drive in a caddy and currently using it as an external drive for now.
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Regardless of the drive is not partitioned or not, it should be shown in the Disk Management, where you can choose to partition a disk drive.
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yodadude
If the SATA drivers have been installed, either by SP3 or by you from the CD there should be a listing in Device manager for the SATA controller/s.
Look under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Also look at Disk Drives to see if the drive shows there.
If there is no listing for SATA controllers then you still need to install the drivers. Go to Control panel> new hardware to install.
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I tried lurkswithin's approach, and all went well. I now have a working visible Sata drive.
Thank you all for the suggestions, all of you are magic :o)
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Interestingly enough this afternoon I experienced the same thing with a new 500GB SATA II WD drive. Ended up using Data Lifeguard. The only option I could get in WinXPsp3 was to make the new drive a dynamic disk. That isn't what I wanted.
Must be a bug of some sort in WinXP.
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