I have two SATA drives which I am trying to install on a new motherboard. The first is fine. I've installed XP on it and it works fine on its own. If I attach the second drive in order to format it the MACHINE will not boot. I get no POST 'beep' and I get a screen which offers me F2 for BIOS or F11 for Setup screen (can't remember the exact wording) but selecting either of these options does nothing EVEN though the responses onscreen imply the machine is taking the required action. I have tried installing the second drive on its own and trying to boot from CD but the same SCENARIO results. I have also tried installing an IDE drive as a secondary drive but when I do this I get the dreaded BSOD. It's an AMI BIOS. Any ideas?How are they setup?
Look in the BIOS to see which is disk 1 and which is disk 2.
Are both set to be master or slave?
Do you have CS selected but the drives in the wrong order?
Which is set to boot first?

It's my understanding that it's not necessary to jumper for Master/Slave/Cable Select with SATA drives and I get the same result whether I have them both attached or the unformatted one on its own so which order they're set is surely irrelevant? In any case, I can't get to the BIOS if I have the unformatted drive attached as the screen is frozen. Thanks for the response, anyway.How many SATA ports does this machine have ? ?
Has the drive been formatted yet ? ? Many ship without formatting.
What PSU do you have and what is it's rated wattage ? ?Quote from: patio on April 23, 2010, 06:31:55 PM

How many SATA ports does this machine have ? ?
Has the drive been formatted yet ? ? Many ship without formatting.
What PSU do you have and what is it's rated wattage ? ?