Hi,
I’m looking to increase the storage capacity of my Scenic Edition X102 with the following spec –
Mobo: D2140-A22
Bios: Phoenix v5.00 rev1.12.2140.03
CPU: Pentium 4 - 2.8GHz
RAM: 2Gb
Chipset: SiS 661FX
Southbridge: Sis 964
I’m hoping somebody may be able to advise on whether what I am trying to do is possible or not!
I am trying to replace the original IDE HDD with a SATA drive - Samsung HD153WI 1.5TB 32MB SATA II - (Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-HD153WI ... b_title_ce) as the bootable medium. As the mobo has no SATA ports and only one available IDE port, I bought an IDE / SATA converter (Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00279MSBG) to connect the drive to the primary IDE port. It supposedly supports SATA I and II and the good reviews that it had received gave me the impression that this would work.
On bootup the HDD is seen in the bios and on trying to load an OS (have tried using both XP & Win 7), the drive was initially seen but I was unable to partition or format the drive – the only choice I was given was to “load drivers”. Now the drive is not being seen at all when loading OS. I have since partitioned & formatted the drive in a mate’s PC, but it is still not being seen when back in this machine and attempting to install an OS.
According to the Fujitsu site, I have the latest bios version and I’ve tried loading RAID/SATA drivers from the original Fujitsu Utilities disk – but simply get a message saying it cannot find SiS Raid Controller.
I have also tried forcing the drive into SATA I mode (1,5Gbps) by jumpering the drive pins, as per Samsung FAQs, since the instructions received with the converter seemed to imply SATA I only was supported.
After unsuccessfully searching for any helpful info, driver updates, patches etc that may assist for some weeks now I am reluctantly beginning to suspect that this PC just doesn’t have the capability to be able to use this drive in the way I was hoping.
So my query is – am I right in thinking that this appears to be impossible or is there something simple I’m missing that might sort this out??
If the above isn’t possible, as a “Plan B” I’m considering using a PCI SATA card and connecting the drive through it as a storage medium only as I believe it’s not possible to connect a bootable drive via a PCI card. I would then have the OS on the original IDE drive. Before I rush out and buy a PCI SATA card, would this setup be likely to work?
Apologies for the lengthy post but I have tried to give as much info as possible.
Any input on this would be much appreciated!
Thanks.