[Totally Lost] Problems with D975XBX2 board

[jonw]

Hey guys, my wife's company gave her a board and processor recently, and we just attempted to put it together. Well, she put it together, mostly. We got everything going, it boots and everything, but we cannot get the OS to install. After messing around with it, I figured the problem was probably with the harddrive. We bought a brand new Maxtor 200GB SATA drive, btw. At startup, we will get this message if it is in the SATA 0-3 slots:

Adaptor 1

Arrays Information:
No Array is defined!

Disk Information:
No Hard Disk is defined!

Press <Ctrl> + <M> to enter Marvel RAID BIOS Configuration or Press <Space> to Continue

In the BIOS, it can see the drive, it is just set as the slave instead of the master. It is making my IDE DVD drive the primary drive, and I cannot change that at all.

If I put the drive in any of the second set of SATA ports, 4-7, the startup message changes:

Adaptor 1

Arrays Information:
No Array is defined!

Disk Information:
SATA 4 (can't remember exactly what it says, but it definitely sees it)

Press <Ctrl> + <M> to enter Marvel RAID BIOS Configuration or Press <Space> to Continue

Still won't let it be the primary drive though. I tried to load a couple of OS'...loading Windows, it just goes blank right before it's supposed to get to the part where you pick which hardrive you want the OS to go on to. In my version of Linux, it's saying there is no hard drive to install the OS.
I should have the latest BIOS, cause the guys at her work actually flashed it and set it up for her.

I'm totally at a loss...You see, I'm a n00b hardcore when it comes to this stuff. So I did a search on the intertubes and found this board. Please help!!!

[jonw]

Oh, and the processor they gave us is an Intel Q6600 Quad Core, and we bought a 7600GS vid card for it, 2 sticks of 1gb memory (don't remember which brand, but I can look if necessary).

Also, I was curious if this setup is decent. I'm wanting to get into games...On my old desktop, I tried to run Oblivion on it and couldn't get past the most basic settings (Old system was a P4 3.2ghz, 2gb ram, Radeon 9600 Atlantis). Will this setup be better than that? I know the vid card isn't that great, but we are looking at upgrading the video card come Xmas. That is if we can ever get the board to work!

[kenc51]

Sounds like the BIOS has defaulted to use RAID for your hard drives.
I don't have this board, but check the bios for an option to set the HDD to run as "IDE"

That system will run Oblivion fine, with lower settings/resolutions.

Welcome to LRForums BTW

[jonw]

Sounds like the BIOS has defaulted to use RAID for your hard drives.
I don't have this board, but check the bios for an option to set the HDD to run as "IDE"

That system will run Oblivion fine, with lower settings/resolutions.

Welcome to LRForums BTW

Thanks man, good to be here.

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot when I get home from work. (I'm not on the clock though, just trying to get some tips on what I can do to fix my home computer. <~~~For my boss if he reads this ) I think my wife tried to set it to run as IDE already, as opposed to the AHCI, but I'll see if it works when I do it

I look forward to learning as much as I can. I want to look into this "overclocking" thing....whatever the hell that is

[vbironchef]

I needed a floppy drive to load the intel drivers before I could instail windows xp pro.

[jonw]

Hey Ken, I set the drive to IDE, the only thing that changed is now it recognizes the drive in SATA 0-3 (it didn't before), but still the same issue, it won't let it be the primary drive.

I'm going to take vbironchef's advice and I'll try to buy a floppy and try to find the driver for it. I'm surprised it doesn't already have them preloaded. Where do I have the option to load the drivers?? You can't do that from the BIOS can you? That's about the only thing I know how to get to.

[kenc51]

When windows is about to install, you'll get a message on the screen to load 3rd party drivers. I think you press F4 but I can't remember.

Have you tried to attach the HDD to a different sata port?

[Darkstar]

I thought it was F6

What about disabling the raid in the bios?

[jonw]

When windows is about to install, you'll get a message on the screen to load 3rd party drivers. I think you press F4 but I can't remember.

Have you tried to attach the HDD to a different sata port?

Yup, I have 8 SATA ports on that board, I tried every single one of them.

[jonw]

I thought it was F6

What about disabling the raid in the bios?

Yeah, it is F6, I remember getting that message. I think I did disable the raid in the bios, at least how I know how to do it: I disabled the secondary SATA controller under peripherials in the BIOS. I still get the same startup message, which, from my reading, will be an issue with this board no matter what.

I'm going to try installing the SATA driver tonight when I boot up windows. Hopefully that will fix it. You'll know if it didn't work if I don't post tonight

[jonw]

Yeah, that didn't work

[jonw]

My wife is taking it into her work. They build clusters for f'kn NASA there, so if they can't get it to work, no one can.

[Darkstar]

ahem

[geo]

what is the outcome? i am having the exact same problem and have no clue what to do.

oh, btw, i am new to this board.