AsRock 970 Extreme 4: Only Windows 8 Recognizing HDDs

[soulrain]

This is a weird one.

So I have (1)win_xp, (2)win_vista, (3)win_7 and (4)win_8.

For 1-3 this is what happens. On boot I hit F11 to boot from CD. All is good "Hit any key to boot from CD..." I do so then Windows begins
to load files and when the F6 messages comes up my hitting the F6 key is not recognized but then the next F2 prompt I can hit is all good.

It then says it cannot detect any mass storage devices...

So then I though I will just do a splitstream with the all in one drivers from ASrock site which did not work.

THEN for (4), win_8, every goes as planned.

I am pretty much lost with this. I thought maybe UEFI or changing IDE to AHCI in bios but to no avail.

Something tells me there is something simple I am missing with this mobo as I have built quite a few rigs and there usually isn't this much
trouble.

Anyway any help would be greatly appreciated.

[parsec]

Re: AsRock 970 Extreme 4: Only Windows 8 Recognizing HDDs

If I understand, you have four Windows installation disks, from XP to Win 8. Booting from the XP to Win 7 disks then cause no detection of the HDD(s)? But Win 8 does detect the drives, correct?

What drives are you using, and how many are connected to the PC when this occurs? Are all the drives seen in the BIOS?

With XP, you may be stuck with IDE mode, but the others should be fine with AHCI, which is preferred above IDE.

It seems like the "first three" as you put it, need a driver before the drives can be seen. But that does not make sense for Win 7 IMO, the standard MS msahci driver should work.

The "F6" driver for your board, the " SATA RAID Driver (For system to read from floppy diskette during Windows installation)" is the same for all the versions of Windows, did you try loading it during the installation? Although this driver is used for RAID, it should work in AHCI mode too.

You may need to clear the BIOS/CMOS between every attempt to install the different Windows version.

[soulrain]

Re: AsRock 970 Extreme 4: Only Windows 8 Recognizing HDDs

If I understand, you have four Windows installation disks, from XP to Win 8. Booting from the XP to Win 7 disks then cause no detection of the HDD(s)? But Win 8 does detect the drives, correct


Correct ... sometimes I get BSOD ***STOP: 0x0000007B (.... some other hex numbers
other times I get cannot detect mass storage devices enter a floppy to fix. I do have a 3.5 floppy drive but no discs
since this isn't the 90's



What drives are you using, and how many are connected to the PC when this occurs? Are all the drives seen in th

Samsung ssd and yes they are seen in bios.

With XP, you may be stuck with IDE mode, but the others should be fine with AHCI, which is preferred above IDE.

Pretty sure I have tried both but can try again.

It seems like the "first three" as you put it, need a driver before the drives can be seen. But that does not make sense for Win 7 IMO, the standard MS msahci driver should work.

I agree it is weird.

The "F6" driver for your board, the " SATA RAID Driver (For system to read from floppy diskette during Windows installation)" is the same for all the versions of Windows, did you try loading it during the installation? Although this driver is used for RAID, it should work in AHCI mode too.

I can't load it during installation as when I repeatedly hit F6 nothing happens. The strangest part is the F7 windows recovery prompt right after the install 3rd party drivers works fine. I have even gone so far as using Nslip to slipstream the drivers into the installation files and making an iso to no avail.

You may need to clear the BIOS/CMOS between every attempt to install the different Windows version.

I actually have a button on my mobo to do that will give it a shot. What I am trying now is just to install win_xp on another comp and move it over which works sometimes but not others. Is there a way you know of using like a boot cd like Knoppix to manually install windows? Never had this much trouble so I have no idea. I am trying out the new Maxwell nvidia cards so I want o/c stuff which linux doesn't have only reason even messing with windows.

Thanks for the response.

See quote

[parsec]

Re: AsRock 970 Extreme 4: Only Windows 8 Recognizing HDDs

I haven't installed XP or Vista in years, but Win 7 has the Load Driver option displayed at the bottom of the screen, and I never press F6 to get there, that's displayed from the "Advanced" installation selection.

No idea what Knoppix is, or what you mean by manually install Windows.

Installing Windows on one board and moving it to a different one is risky, if the CPU and chipsets are different on each board. The drivers and INF file are different, among many other things.

[soulrain]

Re: AsRock 970 Extreme 4: Only Windows 8 Recognizing HDDs

I haven't installed XP or Vista in years, but Win 7 has the Load Driver option displayed at the bottom of the screen, and I never press F6 to get there, that's displayed from the "Advanced" installation selection.

Ya I played with it. Funny thing it would not show usb devices or cd contents when I took out the install cd for driver cd. I think there was something with the USB driver as some usb devices would not work like keyboard and mouse after select name and country came up.:
Luckily I have (see attacked) which uses PS/2 ports and allowed me to go further.

No idea what Knoppix is, or what you mean by manually install Windows.

Knoppix is a live linux cd boot utility which is like a swiss army knife.

Installing Windows on one board and moving it to a different one is risky, if the CPU and chipsets are different on each board. The drivers and INF file are different, among many other things.

I can't think of anything else to do...

And believe it or not it worked! I presume it didn't hurt that both boxes are pretty similar. Also once I swapped out a win 8 hdd and put it into a new box and it basically reconfigured itself to fit the new hardware. Did some bench marks after and all was well.
Thanks for the help always nice to talk to someone when in a crisis : )

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