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Installing New Sata DVD Drive on XP

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by chapel.irl

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Hi, first post so be gentle...
Am trying to add a new NEC Sata dvd burner to my Dell Dimension E520 (1gig Ram, 160gig hD, XP Pro, pentium D CPU 2.80gHz, came with one TSST Corp burner already installed). Two spare sata ports on the motherboard. Have connected the power and the sata cable (yes, both ends), but the hardware wizard hasn't kicked in on booting - basically the pc isn't seeing the drive. Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong - only ever changed IDE drives previously. Thanks!

15 replies

by mr.wiz

in the BIOS. If your computer wasn't using any SATA drives before, SATA is probably turned off.

by sgt_shultz

xp needs sata controller drivers installed, doesn't have any in there out of the box. could be that. once bios and xp both see the drive (it won't show up except in device manager until you partition and format it) or 'write a signature' to it (harmless to your data)
but sounds like you don't see the drive at POST?
if so, bios is where to look.

by chapel.irl

Thanks also. Again, all of the current connections are sata, does it need a new driver every time a piece of hardware is added via sata?

by chapel.irl

Thanks, the pc runs harddrive and dvd burner (the one already in place) via sata, so would that rule out your suggestion? (Pardon my ignorance btw)

by sgt_shultz

have you had a look on the drive manufacturers website?
we always appreciate it if you post your os, patch level and the model number of the hardware you are having trouble with.
We also dislike guessing and then having you tell us it's not this or that because of information you left out of your original post.
hope that was gentle enought. if not, your money back!

by chapel.irl

Woops.. sorry guys. New to this lark!

The OS is XP (mentioned in question)- the new burner is NEC DVD?RW burner AD-7170S
I'm sorry - I don't know the patch level?

So, what I guess I need to know, in general terms is, if you add new hardware to a sata set-up, (which is new to me, used to IDE), do you need to 'unlock' the sata port on the motherboard in some way to allow the pc see the new hardware. If so, does this need to be done each time for each port, and how's it done?

by chapel.irl

btw - you've answered the first part of the query, thanks for that, very much appreciated.

by ashishs

Are you trying to add another SATA DVD Burner in addition to an existing SATA DVD Burner? SATA doesn't have the primary and slave relationship. It only cares for whats on SATA port 1 and SATA port 2. Go into Device Manager and do a scan for Hardware Changes and see if your new drive is picked up.

by chapel.irl

Yes, thanks, trying to add burner 2 to Sata 4 or 5. Tried the Hardware changes but they're not being seen.

by sgt_shultz

sorry i just grokked that you are adding a dvd drive, not a hard disk. i just read the 'drive' part. my apologies. stolen moments at work...
if i remember your original post you have one sata burner on there right? Have you tried replacing it with the drive in question. using same cables etc? (because they are known to be good, see?)
To answer your question, i do believe you should expect the drive just to show up in My computer. no unlocking or other hocus pocus required for a dvd drive. my previous answer about not needing a drive for the device just the controller is probably not completely true but i think is in general so.
Patch level - i meant xp service pack. to reassure we are not trying to solve some weird problem that is fixed with a service pack or windows update. eg. Win xp Pro, sp2, latest windows updates applied.
I am beginning to think you might have a bad drive. you have a light on the drive? is it showing up at the bios screen? do you know what i mean by that? the bios 'finds' all the drives at boot and displays them on the black boot screen. this is the first place i look in attempt to discern the problem.
keep posting if you don't get an answer,lots of smart folks answer here but not always here on any given day

by chapel.irl

Thanks a million, will try that next to rule out/in the possibility.

by chapel.irl

Folks, you've been a great help, and thanks for that. Here's the solution: because this is a factory bought machine, the bios settings for the sata ports on the motherboard were turned off. (Frankly i think that's just Dell's way of being mean and trying to justify the ?120 they wanted to charge for a 2nd burner (bought from Komplett for ?35). Anyway, a simple adjustment there seems to have done the trick! But thanks for the suggestions - they'll come in handy if I ever get in trouble with this.

by easlifer

Folks,
I had just installed the same DVD device in my Dell Desktop and was having the same issue. Thanks to a quick Google search that revealed this thread, I popped into Bios and turned it on which fixed the issue. Thanks.

by ajclay

I have a new dvd burner SamSung SH-S183 and it is not being seens in windows XP pro.

Service pack 2 is installed and the bios is set with SATA "Enabled"

thoughts?

I scan for new drives and it does not pick up the drive.

This is the first SATA drive I will have installed on this machine... let me know what I am doing wrong..

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