Sata newbie unable to install Sata drive

thor

I have an Abit IS7 mainboard system which I have been using for 6/7 years and have managed to get by without using any Sata devices. Recently however I bought an Oem Samsung Sata dvd burner (SH-S233C) to break my duck and have been trying to get it to work.
I have connected the drive to the mainboard via a Sata power cable and a Sata data cable but when I load up Winxp, it does not see it.
I can't understand what the problem could be and have ruled out driver issues as it is supposedly able to use Winxp's generic drivers.
So can anyone suggest what I should try next?

fwor

Enter the BIOS setup pages and check through the options - it's quite common for motherboards to have an option to disable SATA when not in use, as it makes booting up quicker if no SATA devices are present.

marms

You may also need SATA drivers for windows.

poppy10_2

Load up Windows Update to check you have the latest chipset drivers

davb

It will be the SATA drivers for your motherboard that are needed. If you haven't used the SATA before, you probably never installed them.
Either look on the Abit site for the latest, or use the CD that came with the board.

esuhl

As above, you'll need the SATA drivers. I think you can install them from floppy disk (!) if you press F6 when you initially boot from the XP installation CD. Otherwise, you'll probably find it a lot easier to create your own customised XP CD using nLite. You can pre-install service packs, hotfixes and drivers, and pre-configure many other options too.

thor

Thanks guys. I always assumed that Winxp would have the drivers pre-installed but it does make sense that I need them come to think of it. I can see the drive in the bios, it is just in windows that it disappears.

I have been to Abit's website and there was no mention of the drivers in the IS7 page so I think I had better dig out my mainboard's driver CD and see if it has them.

poppy10_2

Try this:

http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/download/download_driver_detail.php?pFILE_TYPE=Driver&pMAIN_TYPE=Motherboard&pTITLE_ON_SCREEN=IS7-G&pSOCKET_TYPE=Socket 478

thor

thanks for the link poppy but unfortunately the asian and Us mirrors are links to a zero byte zip files and the euroepean mirror does not connect at all. The sata driver was for an IS7-G so is not the exact same model as mine which is an IS7. The IS7 download page has no sata drivers listed on it all!
I have had a look around and cannot find any disks that could have come with the motherboard so it looks like I am stuck with a useless sata dvd burner.

poppy10_2

thor wrote: »

thanks for the link poppy but unfortunately the asian and Us mirrors are links to a zero byte zip files and the euroepean mirror does not connect at all. The sata driver was for an IS7-G so is not the exact same model as mine which is an IS7. The IS7 download page has no sata drivers listed on it all!
I have had a look around and cannot find any disks that could have come with the motherboard so it looks like I am stuck with a useless sata dvd burner.

Don't give up so easily :money:

You can get the SATA driver from here instead if the Abit site isn't working:
http://driverscollection.com/?file_cid=40527893175dfc48b861178ed48

Just make sure you don't click on any of the ads by mistake.

The IS7 and IS7-E both use the same SATA hardware, the IS7-G too although the latter also has an additional two SATA ports provided by a silincon image controller.

spakkker

Abit shut up shop 2 years ago so don't rely on their website alone. There are alternative sources on the internet , as poppy has shown.