SATA issues on an MSI mobo

Bionic Monkey

So I've got a new motherboard (the MSI K9MM-V to be specific) and I cannot get access to my SATA hard drives. The motherboard recognizes them in the BIOS settings, and during Windows installation, I could see them as an option when selecting the installation partition. But now that I'm setting up drivers and updates and shit, nothing I tries gets them to show up in Windows Explorer.

On my previous Asus board, I had to load drivers off a floppy during the Windows installation, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here (aside from the fact that the board's program disc doesn't seem to include drivers).

Anybody with experience setting up SATA drives on MSI boards, I'd appreciate help!

Technicality

If they are new, have you done the whole
control panel->admin tools->computer management->disk management
thing to partition and format them?

Bionic Monkey

No, they're not new, though during windows installation, it says they're unpartitioned, which worries me.

Bionic Monkey

Disk management can see them, but tells me they're unallocated. If worse comes to worst, I have data recovery software I can use, but is there a way I can get to them otherwise?

Technicality

Wierd.. They should show up unless you formatted them for a completely different OS.

Bionic Monkey

Nope. The only thing that's changed is my motherboard manufacturer.

deke55555

What were they formatted as before? Standard NTFS, not-dynamic disks?

Bionic Monkey

Yeah, standard NTFS.

I have a program recovering data while I'm at work today, so at this point, just getting them to show up as normal hard drives is all I care about.

RoundBoy

How are the drives set up in the BIOS ?

For SATA drives, you can set them up to access in IDE mode, or AHCI mode. Installing an OS under one mode, then switching it, will result it yo not being able to see the drive anymore.

I had the same issue going from AHCI mode 64bit Vista install to IDE mode WinXP install on the same drive. Check your BIOS settings.

Bionic Monkey

They were set up as RAID drives (the only way my Asus would recognize them), but the BIOS with this new MSI board sees them as IDE drives. I'll poke around tonight and see if I can figure out how to switch them around.

RoundBoy

What windows OS ? It is very possible that you need to specify F6 for updated drivers, especially if you are using RAID, AHCI, or even IDE mode. It all depends on if the OS disk currently has drivers for you specific HD controller.

BIOS != windows setup... so... in the case of a driver issue, I would expect it to see the drives at POST, but fail during the windows setup.

Technicality

Its no wonder they aren't showing up if they are RAID formatted. You need to go into the BIOS RAID setup thing and set them up exactly the same way you did last time, or it won't see them.

Bionic Monkey

Technicality wrote: »

Its no wonder they aren't showing up if they are RAID formatted. You need to go into the BIOS RAID setup thing and set them up exactly the same way you did last time, or it won't see them.

Yeah, I figured as much. I'm just having a hard time figuring out this new MSI BIOS and where those settings are.

And to RoundBoy, I did find drivers on MSI's site that I made sure to install during XP's installation process. Still didn't help, but I'm positive now it's because the motherboard has the drives designated as IDE.