computer says HDD not connected or switched on

[buck2255]

Hi people, I'm new to this came of computers. Buoght a new comp; for my son so he can play cames online like "GUILD WARS" etc; I've set it up and when I switch it on (inserted the XP disk) the disk did it usual thing and I pressed "Enter" to continue to load the Operating System XP Home and on the screen it says that my HDD are not connected or switched on and that I will have to do a Manufacture setup! PLease HELP.? What I'm I doing wrong. The last computer I bought him was easy I just loaded the XP disk and all worked fine. P.S. every thing is new including a new XP disk.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 4MB Cache Dual Core 64 BitProcessor
Processor: Speed 2 x 2.66GHz
Memory: 2GB DDR2 800MHz Ram
Hard Drive: 500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive
Graphics: Dual Nvidia 8600GT 1024MB PCI-E Graphics Running In SLI Mode

[system7]

I'm guessing , Buck. Go into your bios with DEL or F2 and see what is showing in the way of drives. Set boot order to CD before Hard Drive if you can. Check the wires are tight.

If you identify the drive manufacturer, by opening the case and looking, you can download something like Maxtor MaxBlast or Seagate DiscWizard. These allow you to burn a CD-R that will partition and format a drive. That should get it recognised. Always best to unplug power when opening up a PC.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/

[buck2255]

Hi,Steve, thanks for your quick response. I did as you said earlier, all wires connected tightly and properly. In BIOS the order is as you said. But I noticed that I have two hard drives. They are connected to SATA 1+2 on the motherboard. Does one HDD have to have any jumpers connected to it, even though no jumpers are found in the packaging. My mine is getting blown away with all this. Like I said when we last got a computer and had to load OS Windows XP it all loaded without a Hitch. Do you think I should try to download the link you give me first and see if that will do the trick or could it be that the computer is knackered and take it back to Novatech?? Cheers

[system7]

HA HA. Entity Pro. You have a RAID dual drive setup.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?PC-1113

That explains it. :D

You insert the SATA RAID driver floppy at the F6 prompt when installing Windows. 8)

[Jonny2Bad]

Hopefully it will be all set up in the bios for raid also if not we'll have to talk thru how to set it all up from scratch.

[buck2255]

HI Steve & Jonny, Thanks to you both for your advice and help. At this moment intime my sons comp: is now formatting the disk so hopefully when all is done and working fine he will be able to get online and play his games. Cheers, I'll let you know the result. Martin :D

[Jonny2Bad]

Nice 1 was it due to the raid? And could you let us know how you fixed it so others who are in the same boat can look it up. Cheers

[buck2255]

Just letting you know that it is still formating the partition. Does really take this long to format? :? I started it nearlly 3 hrs ago.

[Jonny2Bad]

How big is the hdd? No my 500g took about an hour i think.

[system7]

I don't know how sound it is, but I always do a QUICK FORMAT on drives.

It's a Windows install option. Otherwise I think you could be all night... :roll:

[Jonny2Bad]

New hdd's should be formatted properly every1 i have quick formatted for the 1st time format has failed on me. Might just be unlucky :x

[system7]

I don't doubt that you're right. And it's probably more important with RAID. Marks the bad sectors, doesn't it.

With single disks, Seagate's DiscWizard does it in 10 seconds flat. Which is what I always use.

[buck2255]

Hi guys just to let you know "Urika" :D my sons comp now up and running. Four hrs it took me. :shock: I'll try and explain how I did it tomorrow. If I can remember. But it was pretty basic once you copied the RAID CD disk to floppy and use f6 with the floppy. But all in all got the computer working Thanks again. I'll write notes down when I get home from work and post them 2morrow night.

[Jonny2Bad]

Good shout sys7! Little research goes a long way :wink:

[system7]

Thanks, Jonny.

I once got involved in a nightmare RAID installation.

Thing is, it's quite easy with XP PRO and VISTA. But XP Home makes a meal of it. :roll:

[buck2255]

Hi Steve & Jonny, Here is the info I promised. I can't remember every detail I did but this is basically most of what I did. Because I have 2 X hard disks that act as one and need to install additional drivers for them to work.

First off I created a RAID floppy disk, there are two ways to do this is. (I found out the second choice by accident when I inserted the ASUS CD in my computer)

1. Require a blank formatted floppy disk. Insert the motherboard CD (ASUS) and reboot the PC, the disk will boot on its own and give you an option screen, (1 to 6). Insert your blank floppy disk and choose the correct option for XP 32 bit windows (on screen #2 NVIDIA 32bit XP SATA RAID Driver). Once the disk is created, remove the motherboard CD and insert the XP disk and reboot. Keep an eye out for PRESS F6 to load additional RAID adapters. As soon as you see this press F6, after a couple of minutes you will get to a screen where you can load the drivers from your floppy disk, press (S) follow the on screen prompts, once these are loaded, continue the windows setup and your drives will be detected as normal.

2. If you have another computer you can load the ASUS CD let auto play, when the “ASUS” window appears click “Make Disk” tag. Insert the formatted floppy and click “NVIDIA 32bit XP SATA RAID Driver” and copy that way

The first option I did and it all works fine. Altough it took 4hrs to format. :( So I hope this helps others that might have this trouble when getting started. But it’s thanks to both of you for your help.

I feel like I am a computer wiz now, 8) :lol:

[system7]

It's so nice to get some real feedback on these sort of things. :D

Glad you sorted it Buck. Anyone who can set up RAID is a COMPUTER WIZ in my eyes.

Hope you enjoy Tomb Raider. Nice game. We should start a thread on it, since Novatech are giving it away in such vast quantities with that ol' 8600GT. LOVE IT!!! 8)

[Jonny2Bad]

Thanks, Jonny.

I once got involved in a nightmare RAID installation.

Thing is, it's quite easy with XP PRO and VISTA. But XP Home makes a meal of it. :roll:
Only ever set it up with xp pro thats all i ever use personally.

[Lustral]

I currently have a 2 x 500 Gb Western Digital KS in a RAID 0 set up , piece of pie to set up.

[teknokid]

vistas got all the drivers, no need for floppys :)