# [SOLVED] Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!



## McMykie (Oct 11, 2009)

OK. I've seen several posts on several forums with the same problem, but none of the solutions have helped me. My OS is winxp sp2 on 40GB PATA IDE drive attached to an ASUS A8V Deluxe mobo with 2 512Mb sticks of memory. I've attached a new Samsung 500GB SATA to every SATA port on the board. The non RAID connectors give me the message in the subject line of this post followed by "the bios does not be installed, press <g> to continue..." If I connect it to the RAID connectors and modify the BIOS accordingly, it recognizes the drive but I can't find it in windows. I'm wanting to replace my existing HDD with this one, but I can't access the drive to format it and install windows. I've flashed newer BIOS but not the _newest_ and that caused enough grief to make me leery of doing it again. I'm tempted to return the drive for a PATA high capacity drive, but this mobo has SATA connectors so why won't it recognize the SATA drive? Is it Samsung and ASUS not getting along or what??? PLEASE HELP!!!!!


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## jobob1 (Jan 15, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

I think you need to install sata drivers for it to recognize the drives.


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## McMykie (Oct 11, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

I've installed every driver on the ASUS website and no joy


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

Change SATA to IDE in the Bios.
Unless you want a clean OS install, you get clone the old HDD to the new one.


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## McMykie (Oct 11, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

Yeah, I finally got BIOS to recognize the drive, but when I install the driver for the Win xp Promise FastTrak 378 controller I get the message: the device cannot start (code 10) in the device manager. Apparently my SATA connectors are faulty, but the RAID ones work fine. I have the BIOS set to IDE and went through the whole process with an ASUS technician, so now it's a windows issue. The driver was downloaded from ASUS, so what now? Also, I've tried the clean OS install with the driver on floppy and get the message: drive cannot be found (or something along those lines). I don't have any non replaceable data on this drive, I just really want my new 500GB to work. I've been fighting with it for almost a week now.:upset:


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

Have you tried removing the old Hdd and then try the install on the new drive?


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## McMykie (Oct 11, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

Yes. During the win xp install i hit f6 and install the driver for the sata drive from floppy, but get the message: no hard drive detected, but in bios it detects the drive as a samsung HD503HJ which is what I have.


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## McMykie (Oct 11, 2009)

*Re: Hardware initiate failed, please check device!!!*

Solution is here... http://www.motherboardpoint.com/wou...ata-hard-drive-without-using-raid-t22671.html It's a ways down the page, numbered instructions. Driver here http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us


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