First of all, cheers for all your help so far (I've posted a couple of queries in this forum lately), but I've got another problem now

I've just finished my first build and I've got to the point of installing my OS and during setup, Win2K doesn't recognise my SATA hard disk. I think I am right in assuming that this is quite a common problem as googling shows several results but none really help. I've tried pressing F6 at the beginning but I am not installing a RAID config or SCSI setup, all I have is a standalone SATA disk. upon pressing F6, I am taken to a screen that gives me the option to run a storage device manufacturer's disk of which I don't have. I've trawled through the BIOS menu's, but there's no options for configuration of SATA drives. I've plugged the drive cable into SATA1 connection on the mobo, and there's power etc cos it identifies it on the POST screen.

I've read somewhere that I may need to burn the drivers to a floppy, and when prompted to run manufacturer's software, run the floppy drive, but I'm not totally sure.
also, the software disk that came bundled with my mobo won't run outside a windows environment, and doesn't contain any SATA related drivers anyway, only ones for RAID setups.

here's my build spec:

ASUS A8V mobo
Maxtor 250GB SATA HDD
AMD Athlon 3200+

One more thing, I also read somewhere that winXP is the way forward if you plad on running SATA drives? Any truth in that?

much confused and any help greatly appreciated.

At first I wondered about the size of the drive but then reading the manual:

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/.../e1994_a8v.pdf

Page 45 (sorry it does not allow copy/paste) says that the minimum requirement for SATA drives is XP SP1.

So it looks like there is truth in SATA/XP

I've now purchased a new version of win xp pro and copied the required driver (windows XP sata378 controller) driver to a floppy and ran the OS installation CD. When it gets to the "install additional drives" screen, I follow the instructions, and install the driver from the floppy and continue the setup but it then displays, "setup cannot find any hard disks installed in your computer....etc".

Any further ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Going back to your original post you were correct in that you should not need to install any drivers for a SATA drive.

I would try installing without loading any drivers.

Also go into your BIOS setup and verify the detection of your SATA drive.

If you have any ATA/IDE Hard drives attached to this machine please remove them during the XP install.

Also in BIOS Setup | Advanced check your SATA setting: onboard SATA-IDE is set to SATA.


.

I have tried installing without loading any drivers (without pressing F6) and all I get is the screen that says "Windows cannot detect any hard disks installed on your computer".

I cannot see any menus in the BIOS that allows me to check SATA setting. I've included a JPG attatchment of my advanced BIOS menu, and the boot menu for you to see.

I've also now tried checking my connections and also plugging in to the SATA2 port, but none of this makes any difference either.

That Promise Controller does not show in your manual ...hmm... try enabling it.

Cheers for all your help on this people, I've finally figured it out and I'm typing this from my new PC, Horaaaaay!!

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I found out that the mobo supports two kinds of SATA support. I had the SATA lead plugged in to the SATA1 port on my mobo,which is located directly adjacent to the VIA chip, but I was trying to install the drivers for the 'PROMISE SATA378 CONTROLLER' which are the drivers for the RAID SATA ports that are located lower on the board, and are labelled RAID1 & RAID2. It seems obvious now, but what was most annoying was that there was never any clear mention of this in the mobo manual
Once I had updated my BIOS and then installed the drivers for the VIA SATA controller, which incidentally can be found on the support CD,the setup identified my HDD and everything went glitch free from then on.

This is my first build, and I'm well chuffed with myself. I will definately be doing more of this in the future.
Cheers for all your advice.

Cool! Glad you figured it out and all is well. We all learn as we go thru these issues. Thanks for sharing.

Come back with any further questions or to help others with your experience!