New HDD & Computer Won't Boot

Question

I replaced my HDD that crashed with a new one. Both drives are SATA and both were connected into the same SATA Port. When I turn my machine on it goes through the post screen for about 35 sec and then goes into a screen I never seen before and the message I get is Searching for Array... It never finds the array so it just gets stuck. I don't and never did have RAID on my machine. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

Motherboard ASUS A7N8X Athlon 3200 Maxtor 250GB SATA HDD

I know its an old machine...

Answer 1

Are there any other drives on the machine? Are you sure the first drive was dead, and it wasn't your sata controller?

Answer 2

Did you clear the Cmos and load optimised defaults?

Install your new OS with SATA disabled. Afterwards when your OS installed, you can turn on SATA again, it's prolly a SATA driver error.

Answer 3

First thing you would want to do is to go into BIOS and set your DVD/CD player as your 1st boot device. Then follow Maxtor's instructions...

The problem that you have with that motherboard in particular is that SATA recognition is part of the RAID BIOS on the motherboard. Maxtor does not pre-format their hard drives so you run into this problem all the time with them. I forget, there may be some specific instructions from ASUS, but I am pretty sure that all you need is the Maxtor instructions:

(From the manual):

New Windows 2000 or XP System or Replacing a Failed 2000 or XP Boot Drive

Before you begin. The SATA host driver for motherboards with embedded SATA controllers, or non Maxtor branded SATA hosts, are typically contained on an installation CD that is included with the motherboard or add-in controller. The SATA host drivers must first be extracted to a floppy disk before installing the operating system. Drivers for Maxtor-branded SATA cards can be downloaded from the Worldwide Support section at www.maxtor.com or extracted to floppy from the bootable MaxBlast CD.

Boot your system from the MaxBlast CD.

1. Boot your system from your Windows installation CD. If you have trouble booting to the Windows XP CD, see Maxtor Knowledge Base Article #855 at www.maxtor.com.

2. When prompted by the Windows installer to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver, press the F6 key then S when prompted, to specify additional devices.

3. Insert the SATA driver floppy and press Enter.

4. Follow the on-screen prompts to finish installing Windows, then continue to “Set the Boot Sequence (New boot drive only)”...