Chaintech 9CJS Zenith Problem. Installing Windows XP With 1 SATA HDD. Do I Need RAID Drivers Installed? How?

Question

I recently installed a SATA HDD. I have a Chaintech 9CJS Zenith motherboard. After a brief Windows XP screen appears, I get a blue screen with an error code. From what I've read, I need to install RAID drivers, but I only have one (1) hard drive installed (SATA). Do I still need to install the RAID drivers? In which configuration then? And how would I go about doing it? I put what I think are the correct files on a floppy to install by pressing F6 during the boot up windows xp screen, but I don't want to try it. Basically, I don't want to screw up my computer. I'm leaving for school in two days and need to do this beforehand. If someone could help, I'd appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Jesse

Answer 1

I suppose you want to install XP on this SATA drive. To Install the operating system onto a serial ATA hard disk successfully, you need to install the SATA controller driver during OS installation (that's the thing with the F6 button). Without the driver, the hard disk may not be recognized during the Windows setup process. First of all, copy the driver for the SATA controller from the motherboard driver CD-ROM to a floppy disk. The instructions how to do this should be provided in the motherboard manual.

Answer 2

As I answered in one of your other posts on the same topic:

"...[some boards have] strange conflictions between...drives dealing with SATA/Windows XP interactions. In the BIOS I was able to set my SATA drives as being RAID, AHCI, or IDE. Masking SATA drives as IDE offered the most compatability. But some drives would only work in either RAID or AHCI modes. In those two modes, I needed the RAID driver floppy disk provided with the motherboard inserted and needed to hit F6 when prompted in the XP install."

See if you can change the mode in which your SATA drives are percieved by the OS, in your BIOS. Usually this will be under drive settings.

Matt
A+ Certified Technician

Answer 3

Here's Microsoft's explanation on how to replace a motherboard with XP