VT7 Motherboard: adding SATA Drive

I have a functioning Windows XP Pro system on a VT7 motherboard.
It has an IDE drive on the primary master and a DVD drive on the
secondary master.

I want to add an additional hard drive for storage (Seagate 1.5T
Barracuda; I have jumpered it down to 1.5Gb/sec, per the manual)

Upon installing the hard drive and connecting it to the motherboard it
is not recognized by the bios, and I see no setting in the CMOS that
state anything like "activate SATA ports"

When booting the system the first three lines read:
-VIA Tech VIA8237 Serial ATA Raid Bios Setting Util v 2.21
-Serial_CH0 Master: No Device
-Serial_CH1 Master: No Device

The system continues to function with Windows XP Pro; I just can not
get the motherboard to recognize the SATA drive.

I hear no sounds from the SATA drive, but do believe something is
happening as it does get warm after it's been in there a while. Not
uncharacteristically hot, just warm like a hard drive.

Any suggestions on next steps?

Thanks.

 

Well, assume for the moment, that the BIOS won't boot from it. Let's
try to make it work as a data drive, as a first step. That means
what the BIOS thinks, doesn't matter.

If you're in Windows, do you have a driver installed for the SATA port ?
If you look in Device Manager, can you see something for the SATA ?
If so, if you look in Disk Management, are you seeing an unpartitioned
new item in the drive display ?

(Picture of Disk Management plugin...)
http://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers/2009/win-disk-task-not-initialized.jpg

Viaarena.com has drivers. I see a couple possibilities.

The basic chipset drivers, may provide a driver for the SATA interface.
Is the chipset PT880/VT8237 ?

Try the Hyperion Pro driver first. It is similar to the VIA 4-in-1, but
for later chipsets. I think that is what I'm using currently, to
make a single drive work on my VT8238S. The VT8237S is a VT8237,
with SATA II capability. (I didn't need a RAID driver, just the
chipset driver was enough for me.)

Hyperion Pro (basic chipset driver)
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070

The RAID driver is less likely to make you happy, but I'll show
a link for that as well. (Sometimes, to figure out what these
drivers do, I have to download both packages, and have a look
at the README file. The README file may make different claims
for the driver, than the Viaarena description text.) I haven't
a clue, when you'd use the Falcon, but if you use a program
like 7ZIP, you can always unzip the file and have a look at the
component parts before installing it.

(VRAID driver)
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1180&SubCatID=143

(Good for extracting or picking apart downloads)
http://www.7-zip.org/

To download from Viaarena, *only* press the black outlined rectangle.
The page has many advertising links - don't click any "driver scan" links.

Good luck,
Paul

 

(server glitch, resent...)

Well, assume for the moment, that the BIOS won't boot from it. Let's
try to make it work as a data drive, as a first step. That means
what the BIOS thinks, doesn't matter.

If you're in Windows, do you have a driver installed for the SATA port ?
If you look in Device Manager, can you see something for the SATA ?
If so, if you look in Disk Management, are you seeing an unpartitioned
new item in the drive display ?

(Picture of Disk Management plugin...)
http://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers/2009/win-disk-task-not-initialized.jpg

Viaarena.com has drivers. I see a couple possibilities.

The basic chipset drivers, may provide a driver for the SATA interface.
Is the chipset PT880/VT8237 ?

Try the Hyperion Pro driver first. It is similar to the VIA 4-in-1, but
for later chipsets. I think that is what I'm using currently, to
make a single drive work on my VT8238S. The VT8237S is a VT8237,
with SATA II capability. (I didn't need a RAID driver, just the
chipset driver was enough for me.)

Hyperion Pro (basic chipset driver)
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070

The RAID driver is less likely to make you happy, but I'll show
a link for that as well. (Sometimes, to figure out what these
drivers do, I have to download both packages, and have a look
at the README file. The README file may make different claims
for the driver, than the Viaarena description text.) I haven't
a clue, when you'd use the Falcon, but if you use a program
like 7ZIP, you can always unzip the file and have a look at the
component parts before installing it.

(VRAID driver)
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1180&SubCatID=143

(Good for extracting or picking apart downloads)
http://www.7-zip.org/

To download from Viaarena, *only* press the black outlined rectangle.
The page has many advertising links - don't click any "driver scan" links.

Good luck,
Paul