Asus M4N78 Pro SATA driver issue for Windows 7

I'm not that familiar with SATA hardware yet. I know that with IDE you can disable the ports you are not using in the system BIOS. I think this is what Ross was talking about.

Could it be that Ports 5 & 6 are disabled?

I was also looking at the snapshot and was curious to know if ports 5 & 6 was was specific to Raid functionality.

Hi Brad -


It's very simple to install the correct drivers from your ASUS Driver CD that came with your motherboard. Here's all you have to do:

There are two ways to get the drivers to work correctly one of which is far easier than the other.

#1 Edit the .inf file of the installation for the RAID/SATA controller so that the system will read the Windows 7 version correctly. (Not too difficult but requires extracting the entire folder installation from the CD to a HD and then editing the inf file) If you'd like to know how to do this let me know...

#2 Go to your control panel (I don't know if you have it setup from the original installation or if you have set the options to view the "classic" style of control panel) and either go to Device Manager or figure out how to get to "Advanced Settings" and then find Device Manager. Once you've found it, look to see if you have a tree called "Storage Controllers". If you do have it available just expand it and check the RAID/SATA Controller - Right click - Update Driver Software - Browse my computer - Then point the directory search to the file which corresponds to the ASUS AHCI/RAID/SATA controller on your CD. To find the directory of this file, look to the Filelist.txt on the CD to locate it.

If you do not have a "Storage Controllers" tree, just look under System Devices for the AHCI/RAID/SATA controller and update that driver with the same directions as above.

That should allow you to use the external ports. If it does not; you may have to check your bios options to change from IDE/SATA to RAID/SATA or AHCI for the external controllers to be visible to the OS.

I hope that solved your problem! All the best to you eh!?

- Rob / GanjaSMK

I know this is an old thread, but in case anyone else runs into this issue, the solution was very simple. All the OP had to do was go into the BIOS and change Storage Configuration from SATA to AHCI. This then enables all internal SATA ports for use. Hope this helps someone in the future

When I try to set the SATA mode to RAID in the BIOS, my bios just sits on the screen saying "DETECTING STORAGE DEVICES" It never goes past that screen.
I wrote to ASUS technical support and they replied to "READ THE MANUAL"...WOW....how rude. No help on how to get past that screen. Plus, it locks up and never goes anywhere, so I had to clear the BIOS to go back to SATA mode, instead of RAID Mode. Has anyone else actually set up a RAID on this motherboard??? I finally just ordered a separate add-on RAID card with 2 SATA ports and an IDE port. Hopefully, I can use all of my drives. I dual-booting to XP-64 bit and Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

I have the same board PodCulture. Read the manual if you have it or download it, in it you will find that to activate slots 4 and 5 you need to enable ACHI or RAID mode. The answer is on page 1-22 about half way down...

Quote "SATA 5-6 connectors support AHCI mode and RAID mode only. Make sure to install the AHCI driver or RAID driver in the bundled support DVD before connecting devices to SATA 5-6 connectors. Otherwise, the devices will not work"?

The key to setting up RAID and AHCI mode, is to do so before installing the OS. Asus dropped the ball on that one. So, if you have your OS installed all ready, you have to insall drivers then do a clean install...sucks, I know.