Win 2000 Server on S-ATA harddisk

Donar · External Since: May 06, 2009 Posts: 2

Good day,

Problem description:

I want to install Windows 2000 Server on an Acer Aspire M1100.
The machine's harddisk is a WD Caviar 320 GB attached via S-ATA.
The S-ATA controller sits on an Acer F690GVM mainboard.
Since S-ATA is newer than Win 2k, it is not supported by Win 2k Setup
(Setup does not see the disk).
Therefore I need to load the appropriate S-ATA controller, using that
F6 key right at the beginning of the Setup.
Alas, the Acer came without any CDs or other documentation (and with
Vista pre-installed).
Hence I have no device driver for the S-ATA controller of said
mainboard.
An extended half-day long search via Google, Acer pages etc. did not
hint at the existence of such a driver. (I wrote to Acer and am
prepared to face a weeks long waiting period.)

Can someone help me to find the appropriate S-ATA driver for the
F690GVM board (probably hidden in a package of other motherboard
drivers)? (Otherwise I'd need to buy an old-technology IDE harddisk,
for which there fortunately still is a bus in the machine *grin*)

I hope that I am not the first person with this task (but if I am, I
hope the given answers will help future users...)

Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance!
//Herbert

Andy9 · External Since: Jun 19, 2004 Posts: 93

This computer uses the ATI SB600 southbridge chip. You can try using
the AHCI driver from
<http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ProductID=2554&ost=xp#anchor_os>,
but there's a good chance that it won't install under Windows 2000.

What you should do is change the mode of the SATA interface in Bios
setup to IDE mode. Then you won't need any driver.

On Wed, 6 May 2009 22:45:12 -0700 (PDT), Donar
wrote:

>Good day,
>
>Problem description:
>
>I want to install Windows 2000 Server on an Acer Aspire M1100.
>The machine's harddisk is a WD Caviar 320 GB attached via S-ATA.
>The S-ATA controller sits on an Acer F690GVM mainboard.
>Since S-ATA is newer than Win 2k, it is not supported by Win 2k Setup
>(Setup does not see the disk).
>Therefore I need to load the appropriate S-ATA controller, using that
>F6 key right at the beginning of the Setup.
>Alas, the Acer came without any CDs or other documentation (and with
>Vista pre-installed).
>Hence I have no device driver for the S-ATA controller of said
>mainboard.
>An extended half-day long search via Google, Acer pages etc. did not
>hint at the existence of such a driver. (I wrote to Acer and am
>prepared to face a weeks long waiting period.)
>
>Can someone help me to find the appropriate S-ATA driver for the
>F690GVM board (probably hidden in a package of other motherboard
>drivers)? (Otherwise I'd need to buy an old-technology IDE harddisk,
>for which there fortunately still is a bus in the machine *grin*)
>
>I hope that I am not the first person with this task (but if I am, I
>hope the given answers will help future users...)
>
>Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance!
>//Herbert

Donar · External Since: May 06, 2009 Posts: 2

On May 8, 1:14 am, Andy wrote:
> This computer uses the ATI SB600 southbridge chip. You can try using
> the AHCI driver from
> <http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ProductI...>,
> but there's a good chance that it won't install under Windows 2000.

Thank you, Andy, appreciated.

I tried, and knowing the chipset now also found more sources and tried
them as well. That is, I made Slipstreams with Win2k + SP4 + driver
for them all, but after 3 ISO-images (2 ignoring the driver, 1
complaining about corrupted file) it's apparent that proceeding is to
no avail: there never was a Win2k driver for the Southbridge, leaving
me with the only option to use an ATA/133 instead of S-ATA.

As for the BIOS, that's what I attempted first. It's not an option to
switch the ATI SATA Type from AHCI to ATA, install the OS, change it
back after finding the drivers, because the silly PhoenixAward BIOS
has an unchangeable entry "ATI SATA Type: Native IDE"...

Anyway, thanks again!
//Herbert