Windows 7 Internal SATA drive not found in Windows 7

[misterslick]

Hello, I'm new here. I recently installed Windows 7 RC 32-bit on a Seagate 300GB IDE drive. I also have XP on a separate IDE drive. I am able to dual boot successfully. My problem is that I have a Seagate 1.5TB SATA drive that I can use in XP, but W7 does not see or recognize it. I'm assuming a driver issue is the culprit. My motherboard is a GA-7DXR with an AMD 3000+ chip. I am also running with 2.5 GB of RAM. If there is other info anyone might need to diagnose this problem, I'll try to get it for you. Thanks.

mark

 

[textureDnB]

go to device manager (computer--> properties--> upper left device manager) check for any yellow ! .
report back on what you find.

 

[misterslick]

Thanks. I'll try to find out and post back. It might take me a bit.

mark

 

[Highwayman]

GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver - GA-7DXR

doesnt seem to be any official Vista/WIn7 drivers

 

[misterslick]

Thanks, Highwayman. I'll check out that link.

Here's what I found.

Other Devices (below is what had yellow !'s)
Ethernet Controller - perhaps a router or modem ?????
Mass Storage Controller - ?????? (not sure what this is)
Multimedia Audio Controller - ????? FYI, I haven't checked if I have sound, but, I don't think so. I do know my graphics/monitor are not displaying correctly.
Raid Controller - the TB drive in question comes with raid capability, but I don't have it setup that way.
Scan - ??????? (not sure what this is either)

There were some "?" displayed as well, but I figured out what those were by the description and had nothing to do with the HDD. In W7 mode, "Disk Drive" had the two IDE drives listed, but not the SATA. In XP mode, all three drives show up under this option. The SATA drive shows up as "SCSI Disk Device" in "Disk Drives" in XP.

BTW, my graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700LE, if that helps any.

Thanks again for all your help.

mark

 

[misterslick]

I'm thinking of getting a new graphics card anyway. What about the motherboard? Surely it will work with W7, wouldn't it?

 

[Highwayman]

That's a very long list of missing drivers that will certianly cause issues using Win7.

Since all boards these days are PCIEx2 rather than AGP now your probably going to find you need to upgrade all the components i'm afraid, all the mobos in last 2-3 years have abandoned the slots they use for the faster types, otherwise the odd store online may have some oldish stock thats a halfway house that may work with some of you old components although to be honest it'll take a big performance hit.

If you need any help about what sort thing to buy just tell me your county and budget prices your willing to spend....

 

[Mike]

I'm thinking of getting a new graphics card anyway.

Wait to get a DirectX11 card... even if you buy a Radeon 4890 (one of the best cards out there) it is going to be DX10.1. DX11 cards are close to release and I'm assuming if youre buying a new GPU its going to be for gaming.

 

[Highwayman]

I'm working on the assumption since his rig is quite old a new Dx11 card would equate to the budget required to build an entire rig with a dx10 card...lol

 

[Mike]

Buy a new computer! No just joking... you're right about that... Just buy a medium-end card that can run todays games... Windows 7 runs great on a netbook with bad integrated video and a slow SSD... I don't see that he would have a problem running some of the newer games on a mid-range card.

 

[Ed Dixon]

Consider trying an add-on hard drive card with the SATA drive. You can get low cost ones for less than 20$ and it may solve your issue.

Ed

 

[misterslick]

Ed,
your response made me remember that there is a PCI card that the SATA drive uses. If I remember right, the mobo that I have didn't have a SATA connection, so I opted for a PCI card to operate it.

 

[misterslick]

Highwayman, yes, the computer is probably close to 3-4 years old. I use it more for photo editing, since I am pro photographer, than for gaming.

Thank you for all the help thus far. I appreciate it.

 

[misterslick]

Wait to get a DirectX11 card... even if you buy a Radeon 4890 (one of the best cards out there) it is going to be DX10.1. DX11 cards are close to release and I'm assuming if youre buying a new GPU its going to be for gaming.

Thanks for the advice, Mike. I'll remember that when I do upgrade my computer.

mark

 

[nehoma]

I once had a similar problem when dual booting IE a drive missing in one of the OSs.
I went to: (in the OS with the missing drive)Administrative tools/computer management/disk management. The drive was shown there without an allocated letter. I allocated it a letter and it then was detected by the OS on the next boot up

 

[Ed Dixon]

Ed,
your response made me remember that there is a PCI card that the SATA drive uses. If I remember right, the mobo that I have didn't have a SATA connection, so I opted for a PCI card to operate it.

YOu may have a missing driver for the SATA PCI card. Ive managed to find useable drivers for very old hard drive cards in W7.

Another low cost option is a small adaptor that converts a SATA drive for use with IDE mother boards. I have one on an older Dell system that cost about 15$ and works just fine.

I bought the drive to replace one that died. By mistake I purchased a SATA drive rather than an IDE drive. So I got the small adaptor, and all is well. Its a very small board that fits on end of SATA drive and has IDE connection on other side. Its like 1 inch by 2 inches.

Ed

 

[misterslick]

I once had a similar problem when dual booting IE a drive missing in one of the OSs.
I went to: (in the OS with the missing drive)Administrative tools/computer management/disk management. The drive was shown there without an allocated letter. I allocated it a letter and it then was detected by the OS on the next boot up

I'll give that a try. Thanks for the tip.

mark

 

[misterslick]

I'm gonna give it a rest for the weekend and work more on it next week. Have a good weekend.

 

[misterslick]

I once had a similar problem when dual booting IE a drive missing in one of the OSs.
I went to: (in the OS with the missing drive)Administrative tools/computer management/disk management. The drive was shown there without an allocated letter. I allocated it a letter and it then was detected by the OS on the next boot up

I tried that and I couldn't find the drive. I have formatted and allocated a letter for the drive in XP. It works fine in XP, just not 7 RC. I saw an option to add a virtual drive, but I don't think that's what I want to do, is it?

 

[Highwayman]

prehaps invest in a external sata usb caddy, thus bypassing need for sata or drivers....