# p4v8x-x motherbroad - sata drives not showing up!



## jono2005 (Apr 8, 2005)

Ok Im having a problems with 2 sata drives & this motherbroad. They are not showing up in the bios. I have also tryed to install windows xp & install the drivers by pressing F6. That does not help either, the computer can't find these drives. 

Any help would be great.

Thanks


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Hi jono2005, and welcome to the forum!

This looks like kind of a unusual mobo. I say that because the manual doesn't seem to show any BIOS setup fields to configure or enable the SATA ports or the RAID.

I will warn you that the SATA port drives probably will not "show up" on the BIOS Main screen. That screen only displays devices on the PRI_IDE1 and SEC_IDE1 ports. Many mobos show the SATA1 & 2 ports as "Third IDE Master" and "Fourth IDE Master", but yours doesn't seem to do this. 

However, if you go to the Boot- Boot Device Priority screen, you ought to see your SATA controller or drives, as available choices for boot devices. If you don't see them there under Boot, make sure power is applied (SATA drives need power separately from the data cable). Also if the drives have 2 power connectors, only use one per drive, never both. And SATA Drives typically don't need jumpers.

I could be wrong but I think that your mobo is one of the many whose SATA ports will only run in RAID mode. You have 2 drives, so that should work. But for Windows to see the drives, you will need to press TAB during POST to get into the VIA RAID BIOS utility. There, create an array on your drives _before_ starting Windows Setup. You will need to choose between RAID0 and RAID1; may I suggest "RAID 1 for data protection"?

AND you will also need to prepare a floppy from that VIA VT6420 (VT8237) SATA RAID Driver Package Version 2.20D WHQL driver. There is a MakeDisk.exe utility in that driver package, and that is what you run to make the floppy. I don't know your experience level, but remember that pressing F6 is only part of it. Then you have to wait 2-3 minutes, after which you have to press "S" to Specify Additional Device, and it is the resulting dialog that winds up reading your floppy. The dialog should allow you to choose "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller", and that is what you want.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## jono2005 (Apr 8, 2005)

Hi clintfan

Thanks for the reply but i have already tryed all of this. sorry i meant VIA RAID BIOS utility is not showing the drives & can't create an array as the options are greyed out. 

I have also try the drives on another system but nothing seems to work. I think both drives are faulty as they both make a funny clicking sound before you get to select which drive you want install windows xp on but the drives are not detected .


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Clicking from drives is never a very good sign. Hard to believe both could be bad, though. So tell me about your power supply. And did you attach both the ATXPWR1 and ATX12V1 connectors (manual section 1.12.4)?

Even though this is a VIA chipset, it is still AMIBIOS, and so it seems strange that there is nothing in the BIOS screens to control the RAID function. Here I can only go by what the manuals show. But maybe you can take another look at the real screens youself. In the Advanced- Chipset- "SouthBridge VIA VT8237 Configuration" screen, or the Advanced- Onboard Devices Configuration screen, do you see _anything_ that sounds like 'Serial ATA BootROM' or 'RAID Function' or anything like that? (but _not_ the LAN Boot ROM)

 Oh hey, I just checked the BIOS download page and version 1006 lists a fix, "OnBoard Serial-ATA Boot ROM" change default to 'Enabled'." The manual doesn't even _talk_ about any field by that name. It's the sort of thing I was looking for. And it _would_ need to be enabled for the SATA RAID to work. Usually I don't recommend updating BIOS unless there's a good reason, but this sounds like it might be your baby! 

(Latest BIOS is 1008 btw.) Please see this old thread, Asus P4P800/P4C800 Series: How to Update BIOS, for some helpful tips on updating BIOS, including saving the old version.

-clintfan


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## jono2005 (Apr 8, 2005)

Thanks for that but I have reutrned the drives as they did not work on 2 systems & bought some western digtals sata drives instead & they work on the system with no problems.


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Excellent. Thanks for the feedback!

-clintfan


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## gastongr (Mar 5, 2009)

This thread is old but it helped me a lot!
I just bough a WD Sata disk and i am having the exact same problem jono had, the disk is not recognized in the bios and options are greyed out in the VIA RAID BIOS utility.

I will read the thread about updating the bios and try that, if that doesn't work i will try to test the disk in another computer just to see if it works.

Thanks for all the useful information!


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