# Asus K8V and Maxtor 80GB SATA



## Perfectplayer (Jul 15, 2004)

Hi!

Im new on this forum - but i have a few question for some hardware.

I recently purchased a Asus K8V motherboard and a Maxtor 80GB SATA disc.

I have to install drivers, to install XP - it works fine, and im using the VIARAID-driver from the motherboard cd.

My SATA-disc is on SATA1 - not the RAID.

My question: Why do i have to install a RAID-driver to install XP? My drive is on the SATA1?

Another Question:

When i have to format the drive, i pick the "slow" format. NOT the "quick format".
But it only takes around 5-10 secs. for the disc to format? What is wrong?

Sorry for my poor english, im from Denmark! :no:


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2004)

Have you tried installing anything on this hard drive before? Have you fdisked it by any chance?


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Hi Perfectplayer, and wel;come to the forum!



> Why do i have to install a RAID-driver to install XP? My drive is on the SATA1?


It's because the mobo you chose, only supports RAID on those ports. The VIA 8237 chip doesn't support running the SATA1 & 2 ports in non-RAID mode. EDIT: Hate to say this, but the only mobos I know which can run non-RAID SATA are those using the Intel ICH5 class of chipset, and those are P4 boards, not AMD. I think everybody's hardware can do it, but for some reason nobody's writing software drivers that run this way.

I'm assuming the mobo is a straight K8V, as you said. That mobo's PRI_SATA and SEC_SATA ports do support non-RAID mode, but these are poor for O/S use, due to the fact the Promise contoller which drives them, sits on the PCI bus. 

If you do choose to install to these ports, then you will need the Promise SATA376 Driver (ATA Mode); this is the 378 driver, but apparently it still works for the 20376 chip in your mobo, or Asus presumably wouldn't have posted it under the K8V. Before installing this you will need to run their Makedisk utility which comes with the driver, to make a driver floppy. 

Then you will need to set the BIOS: Advanced- Onboard Devices Configuration- "Onboard Promise Controller" =Enabled, "Operating Mode" =IDE. F10 to save. When you see the early prompt to "Press F6" during XP setup, hit F6. A few minutes later you will need that floppy. 

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## !phil (Aug 18, 2004)

well, im trying to install XP PRO on my k8v SE with WD sata drive, i turned on the "ide" promise driver in bios like clintfan suggested, downloaded the promise drivers and ran makedisk.exe on another comp of mine, F6'ed the disk into the XP installation (it wouldnt work with the floppy set on "read-only" hehe), and the XP installation loaded some sata.driver from the floppy, i continued with that, then it started loading a crapload of raid and scsi drivers like its looking for one, and then it simply rebooted the computer without installing anything 

this is probably because, before xp setup loaded up from the bootable cd, the loading screen for tx promise said "no device found, bios not loaded" or something of the sort... 

im going to go try and see if knoppix 3.4 fares any better


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## !phil (Aug 18, 2004)

ok well, using LinuxDefender_Live!_v1.5.6_CeBIT.iso, even with boot=linux24 testcd, and basically any other option i try from runlevel2 to "-b" to failsafe (on boot=linux26 it doesnt even get to the penguin) it wont boot past "detecting cdrom" and maybe twice out of 20 times it gets past that, it will give a crapload of cloop read error messages

now i know its not the cd or the image (md5 is fine, and the cd is a freshly burned one) nor the drive because i can boot my old knoppix on it fine (it just doesnt detect my sata...)

poo


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## !phil (Aug 18, 2004)

*to clintfan*

well, i'm trying to install XP using the VIA drivers now

at least it gets past the "Starting Windows" thing... although that takes like a whole 3-4 minutes (with the promise drivers it would just reboot right there)

i've partitioned my single sata drive and am trying to install XP on it, when, either during "Checking C:" or "Copying files", i get a reboot....

may this be because only raid is supported, and not single sata mode, by the via drivers? but if so, then how was i able to format it (fat32) and even apparently start copying files on there...

something is fishy  i really dont want to rma stuff, and at this point i dont even know what the culprit is, because, earlier, i was able to boot knoppix 3.3 (no support for sata) which actually detected my sata hdd, albeit as an IDE... and gave no access to it... so maybe its the hdd interface or hdd itself..


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