Win 7 Not recognising my SATA drive.

[toasty]

Before I made the commitment to use Windows 7 as my primary OS, I figured I'd experiment in a dual boot environment. My current setup is Windows XP (x32) installed on a 500GB SATA drive. This drive has a partition for the OS and a separate partition for all of my files and data. To install Windows 7 I removed my SATA drive and (successfully) installed Windows 7 (64-bit) onto an 80GB IDE drive (controller 0, disk 0). After the installation I shut down my system, reconnected my SATA drive, changed the BIOS boot order to look at my IDE and Windows 7 booted without a hitch. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-K8U-939

Now, with Windows 7 running and my SATA drive connected, W7 does *not* recognize the drive. It is completely missing from the disk manager. I loaded the drivers for my motherboard ((however since the MoBo is a couple years old, it doesn't have Vista or W7 drivers)), it loaded quasi-successfully but spat out some error about it not being totally successful. Now, after I log into Windows 7 I receive an error that goes like,

Initial ALiRAID error!!
Please Check:
1) ALiRAID driver is installed
2) ALiRAID controller is connected to disk drive(s)

.

When I reboot my computer and switch the boot order in the BIOS to boot from my IDE drive, my system will boot into Windows XP without any problem at all. I've also switched the BIOS setting from "RAID" to "IDE" for the SATA drive and that appears to have done nothing towards W7 being able to access it.

There's gotta be some way to get W7 to see my SATA drive, doesn't there? Thanks in advance!

 

[toasty]

I've had a new development. In the Device Manager there was an "unknown" device listed as "Mass Storage Controller". I had tried updating it's driver before, but this time I let Windows find it automatically... and it DID. When it was about 95% of the way installed I got a BSOD and the system rebooted before I could take down any info. When W7 loaded back up the unknown Mass Storage Controller took changed its icon from a Yellow Question Mark to a white icon and its driver was listed as not having been installed. So I had W7 find the driver again, which it did without error. The device turned out to be ATA Channel 1.

I rebooted Windows, it loaded fine.... but no SATA drive listed in Disk Manager.
I rebooted into BIOS, changed the SATA setting *back* to "RAID". Now, whenever I reboot into W7, before it gets to the logon screen, is BSODs. It does this without fail while in "RAID" mode. If I switch back to "IDE", W7 loads fine.... but not SATA drive.

Booting into XP from the SATA drive remains completely unaffected during all this so I know the disk/controller is still good.

I'm still confused.... Any ideas guys?

 

[theog]

Hi

Is your SATA drive showing in Device Manager.

A screenshot of Device Manager & Disk Manager may help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-how-post-screenshot-seven-forums.html

 

[toasty]

I'd have to go back into W7 to do that, and I can if it's necessary.

The only physical disks in Disk Manager is Disk 0 (the 80GB IDE drive W7 is installed on) and Disk 1 (the CD rom)

 

[theog]

Hi

Is your SATA drive showing in Device Manager.

A screenshot of Device Manager & Disk Manager may help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-how-post-screenshot-seven-forums.html

Is your SATA drive showing in Device Manager.

 

[toasty]

Is your SATA drive showing in Device Manager.

No, it isn't listed in device or disk manager in W7. Here are some screen caps. We've got the Disk Manager of XP, just so you guys can see that it does show up in XP. Followed by the Disk and Device Manager from W7.

"Disk 1" is the SATA drive

 

[theog]

Hi

Sort out all your UNKNOWN DEVICE.

Take a look at this tutorial:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?ltr=D

My own way of setting up a dual-boot, would be XP on Disk0, Win7 on Disl1.