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 even 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 drivers for the F690GVM board?

Your help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
//Herbert

PS: 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"...

PPS: I tried to make a slipstream with SP4, but even SP4 does not go beyond the stage of where the Setup procedure says "No harddisk existent".

PPPS: Other hints also gladly accepted.



Support Information:
Device Type: BIOS / Motherboard
Manufacturer: Acer
Model: F690GVM
Interface: Other
Operating System: Windows 2000 Server
Age of Device: < 2 years old
FCCID:

Find it on DriverGuide (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=srch&sm=b&aax=&qa6=17&qa5=1&qa7=1702&dp=2&qm0=F690GVM&jmd=and&fzz=d) | Find it with Google (http://www.google.com/custom?client=pub-4727129938051271&forid=1&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&flav=0001&sig=t06hRycrxd-fw_05&q=Acer+BIOS+%2F+Motherboard++F690GVM+Windows+2000+ Server+) | Research manufacturer Acer (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=getinfo&companyid=17)

One of the very first things required to find a driver is to first identify the hardware. Without it you have zero chance at finding a driver.

Once determined, finding a driver is the easy part. If you still have Vista installed, just look in Device Manager to see what the hardware is.

Jerry, apparently, the M1100 has an ATI SB600 Southbridge chip. It seems, that there never was a driver written for Win 2k.

I played around some with building Slip-Streams (Win 2k Server + SP4 + driver) with drivers for which was claimed that they are/might be usable for Win 2k, but to no avail. After burning 3 ISO-images (2 without any reaction, i.e. still seeing no HD, and 1 claiming that the file is corrupt) I come to the conclusion, that they won't work.

I guess, this means that I have to install an ATA/133 HD and sponsor the S-ATA to another PC with Vista on it ;)

(Only a pity that it is not even a month ago that I dumped my good old IDEs including all 40 Pin cables :E )

Anyways, thanks again
//Herbert

Donar,
I did a search for ATI SB600 and nearly all results in each post indicate this is a sound chip. You can use the link below to view all the threads:

http://forums.driverguide.com/search.php?searchid=255864

I suspect you're correct about there being no Win2k Server driver. Maybe someone will come up with a solution. Good luck.