I have built myself a new PC - Intel Quad Core, 2Gb etc. using a Gigabyte 965P-DS3 motherboard (Yes, I know it's previous generation but I wanted a tried and tested mobo.)

POSTs and BOOTs to CD okay but when I attempted to install Windows 2000 (no service packs) on to my 300Gb SATA HDD it saw my old installation and second partition but said they were damaged or unpartitioned. So I reformatted my partition with the old installation and installed the OS - after the reboot and pointing the BIOS at the HDD I got the familiar "Cannot find NTDETECT". Rebooted from the CD again I now appear to have 4 partitions all unrecognised - Hoping to salvage the second partition (It has my backup on DOH!) I have stopped for the night - I will put in my other PC an see what I can see.

Any thoughts?

I have tried plugging into a different SATA port with no difference. I have previously installed Windows 2000 to this drive so I know it works.

I noticed there is a native SATA switch in the BIOS but this did nothing (On or OFF?)

Many thanks.

buy another drive! Install win on that and then copy your data across!

That's not very useful Mike :( I think it maybe the 128Gb limit of W2K causing the problem - though why did it install on this 127Gb partition last time I wonder?

I will have a try this evening when I get home...But any more input would be appreciated.

Forget W2K, it doesnt support SATA properly and never will because MS support ended long ago. Best bet is to go XP now. You can get it to work from SATA, but you need to know what you are doing.

1) install onto normal IDE hard disk drive.

2) install the SATA drivers into the OS

3) use symantec ghost to copy the disk image from the normal IDE drive to the SATA one.

4) reboot again from the ide drive.

5) edit the boot.ini on your new SATA drive to reflect the drive number

6) change bios to boot from sata

7) disconnect ide drive

8) fingers crossed, it should start.

Thanks Mannyo, SATA works fine under W2K, they mimick old E-IDE drives and let you install the OS which lets you install native drivers later.

I got it installed, as I thought it was the old 128GB partition limit - unfortunately, I backed up my old HDD onto the second partition - which I've lost! Funnily I can't remember what I've backed up, so nothing important then {scratches head}.

Unfortunately, W2K only supports two cores (I think) so looks like a new OS is in order...