A8N-SLI BIOS not recognizing SATA HD

[Big Bunny]

Sorry if this is repeating a topic and problem already posted and answered, but after a few fruitless forum searches I haven't had any luck...

I finally got my A8N-SLI MB yesterday and built up my system - hurray! It was fun straightening the bent pins on the CPU I got from Newegg and repairing the damaged fins on my HSF after I dropped it :-o

After reading some success stories posted here, I have been trying to get this system up and running without swapping in the floppy from my old PC to do the initial setup work (flashing etc.), so I haven't flashed the BIOS or made any changes to the settings. Everything powered up OK, at least, nothing burned! However, the BIOS don't seem to be recognizing the SATA HD I installed. I have a Samsung SP1213C connected to the SATA1 slot.

I threw an rather old Creative CD-ROM drive on the Secondary IDE slot and it is recognized just fine. I popped in the CD that came with the MB and am able to get into FDOS no problem, but can't see the HD from there either (FDISK and FORMAT commands both fail).

Do I need to flash the BIOS or install some type of SATA driver to get the drive to show up?

Another thing I noticed that seems funky is when I go into the RAID setup menus in the BIOS, I can see the drive there, and it even let me run the low-level format command...

Anyone have any ideas what I am doing wrong (or not doing) here?

Thanks in advance!

 

[FastEddie]

You need to enable, in the bios, the sata ports you are using, the configure the drive via the raid utility. All of which is discussed in detail in the manual.

 

[JMag]

You know I have had the exact same problem with one of my SATA drives.
Interestingly enough, the BIOS will detected my DiamondMax 10 if it is the only IDE/SATA device I have hooked up. However, if I add another SATA or IDE device it dissappears. I have been able to successfully get two 120gb WD SATA's and a converted 250GB IDE drive to work fine on the SATA channels, but it is just this one drive giving me problems. I have tried all 4 ports on the nvidia controller. I have tried installing the raid drivers form diskette only 5 or 6 times.

I was actually able to get a fresh instal of windows on it once with BIOS 1002. What BIOS version are you running?

This DiamondMax 10 is detected no problem with other devices in my p4 rig, although the reason I got it in the first place, was to check out it's NCQ abilities. I have heard that disabling this can help with certain problems

 

[Big Bunny]

Originally posted by: FastEddie
You need to enable, in the bios, the sata ports you are using, the configure the drive via the raid utility. All of which is discussed in detail in the manual.

I had already checked the SATA port settings in the BIOS, they are all enabled. The manual says that the BIOS should automatically detect the presence of a SATA device, but it's not clear on whether you need to do anything to trigger that function.

I had also looked through the RAID sections of the manual, but didn't find any information about configuration of drives that is not related to setting up a RAID system (which I am not)....

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: JMag
You know I have had the exact same problem with one of my SATA drives.
Interestingly enough, the BIOS will detected my DiamondMax 10 if it is the only IDE/SATA device I have hooked up. However, if I add another SATA or IDE device it dissappears. I have been able to successfully get two 120gb WD SATA's and a converted 250GB IDE drive to work fine on the SATA channels, but it is just this one drive giving me problems. I have tried all 4 ports on the nvidia controller. I have tried installing the raid drivers form diskette only 5 or 6 times.

I was actually able to get a fresh instal of windows on it once with BIOS 1002. What BIOS version are you running?

This DiamondMax 10 is detected no problem with other devices in my p4 rig, although the reason I got it in the first place, was to check out it's NCQ abilities. I have heard that disabling this can help with certain problems

Same bios as you right now 1002.

[iOriginally posted by: Big Bunny[/i]
I had already checked the SATA port settings in the BIOS, they are all enabled. The manual says that the BIOS should automatically detect the presence of a SATA device, but it's not clear on whether you need to do anything to trigger that function.

I had also looked through the RAID sections of the manual, but didn't find any information about configuration of drives that is not related to setting up a RAID system (which I am not)....

I believe you still need to use the nv raid utility (assuming you have the drive on the nv sata port).

First in the bios, you need to go the Onboard Device Configuration and enable the sata ports you are using. If using the nv sata ports, then enter NVRaidConfiguration and enable Raid Enabled which gives you access to configuring the nv sata ports. Now go to the Boot Menue and set the priority cdrom then hardisk then removablr.

Now scroll down to Hard Disk Drives and see if your drive is listed. Save and exit.

On the reboot, I believe you need to enter the nv raid utility to define your disk for the os to be able to see even if you aren't going to run more than one drive.

 

[Big Bunny]

Many thanks

 

[JMag]

Originally posted by: Big Bunny
Many thanks

Did you get it to work?

 

[davidos]

God... what a nightmare I just went through with this....

I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB serial ATA drive that I installed windows on - on my new A8N-SLI... anyway.... after installing windows I updated to the latest beta bios and then shut down...

So I go today to put everything together and the HArd Drive is NOT being recognized... Well after like 4 hours of swapping parts around thinking my power supply was the problem, then the graphics card, then thinking of returning the A8N, I finally FLASHED back to 1002 bios (with a floppy - just press ALT +F2 at bios post and it will look for the bios file on the floppy) and CLEARED the CMOS jumper....(this is important)

I am FINALLY back in business... drive recognized and I will start to put everything back in the case (tomorrow!).

Moral of the story...... STAY AWAY FROM BETA BIOS!!!!!!

 

[Big Bunny]

Yes I got it to work, I must have been getting sleepy because I apparently connected the drive to the red RAID SATA 1 port I was sure I had doublechecked that.

I should have realized that when I could see the drive through the RAID config menus but not from the main menus. Thanks for the help though!

p.s. Still haven't flashed my BIOS though, just using whatever it came in with until I get my floppy moved onto that machine. My XP disks are not bootable (don't ask where I got them) so I am having a rough time getting the XP setup program to run.

 

[bneiderman]

Davidos

I had the SAME ISSUE! My God I am glad I am not alone. My problem now is that the machine will not even POST! I was able to install Windows once, but the AIOS overclock utility would not work so I flashed to BETA and it worked. Then I turned off machine and no recognization again. Now, the machine boots intermittently but when it does it will not get past the BIOS screen OR it will not post at all. Any suggestions? I want to flash back and have the disks, but it will not even get to the boot to floppy stage!!!!

 

[FastEddie]

After flashing the bios, did you enter the cmos setup (bios) to reconfigure the bios settings for your system?

 

[bneiderman]

Yes I did, but now no post. I am boggled. Also, where is the NCQ support in the bios for the Diamondmax which the board supposedly support from the Nforce 4???

 

[davidos]

You need to clear the CMOS jumper on your motherboard first. You should be able to boot into bios without the hard drive.... Then press Ctrl + F2 (or Alt + F2.... check the manual) to reflash the bios back to 1002 using a floppy disk... Once you have 1002 back then go to Load Setup Defaults in the bios and the drive should be back... 1002 is the only one that works with the Maxtor's right now... I have given up trying to overclock until the fix the bios for the Maxtor issues...

To disable NCQ you need to go to the Device Manager in Windows and (I think) go to Hard Disk Controllers then Properties... there is a tab there that has the NCQ info on it... It may be under advanced. I am not at my machine right now.... but it's in there somewhere. There is no NCQ control from bios as far as I know... Good luck!

 

[imported_Fumunda]

I'm having the same issue. I loose my Maxtor when running any bios besides 1002. I think this is a known issues as i've seen the problem in most of the other troble shooting threads as well. from what i understand 1004 is to be released thursday.


Will try that. =)

 

[JMag]

Originally posted by: Fumunda
I'm having the same issue. I loose my Maxtor when running any bios besides 1002. I think this is a known issues as i've seen the problem in most of the other troble shooting threads as well. from what i understand 1004 is to be released thursday.


Will try that. =)

Well let us know ( you can be the guinea pig)

On a side note: If you ever loose a drive in a Beta Bios and have to flash back to 1002, you don't HAVE to clear the CMOS, you can usually just unplug another IDE device or change some setting in the BIOS (that normally forces the 1002 BIOS to see the drive again)

 

[ahurtt]

Anybody had any luck using a SATA Maxtor Diamondmax 10 using the new 1003 final BIOS instead of that bad Beta one? My motherboard (A8N) came in today and I will be building tonight.

 

[clifak]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Anybody had any luck using a SATA Maxtor Diamondmax 10 using the new 1003 final BIOS instead of that bad Beta one? My motherboard (A8N) came in today and I will be building tonight.

You can run the Maxtors on the Silicon Image controller, they'll work fine with any bios. I've found though, for best performance, you should run the drives on NVraid controller using Bios 1002. The downside to that is ....yep, you guessed it, no overclock for you. It a choice you have to make. At first I was optimistic about a bios that keeps my Maxtors, but now I'm ready to throw in the towel, move back to silicon and overclock as much as I can.

 

[davidos]

Just spoke with Asus tech support.... 'level 1'. The guy had never heard of the problem before and was going to pass it along up the chain of command... So who knows when the right person will get the info. At least it's a start... Hopefully it won't take too long!

 

[JMag]

Originally posted by: clifak

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Anybody had any luck using a SATA Maxtor Diamondmax 10 using the new 1003 final BIOS instead of that bad Beta one? My motherboard (A8N) came in today and I will be building tonight.

You can run the Maxtors on the Silicon Image controller, they'll work fine with any bios. I've found though, for best performance, you should run the drives on NVraid controller using Bios 1002. The downside to that is ....yep, you guessed it, no overclock for you. It a choice you have to make. At first I was optimistic about a bios that keeps my Maxtors, but now I'm ready to throw in the towel, move back to silicon and overclock as much as I can.

Umm... You can overclock with the 1002 BIOS just fine... I usually run my 3000+ at ~2.5ghz with this BIOS no prob... And because of the 1t issue I tend to hover around 225-230mhz at 2-3-2-9 1t mem with a 4:5 on the FSB... Although i don't make these setting perminant within the BIOS.

USE CLOCKGEN!!!!

Seriously, it helps alot.

 

[ahurtt]

Hey, all. Here's an interesting observation I made tonight while doing my build.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=29&threadid=1501273

My motherboard arrived today and I've been working on it most of the night. . .Getting ready to turn in now. Just wanted to pose a couple questions. . .
1) I am not running any RAID. I have 1 250 Gig Maxtor SATA drive. When installing Windows XP it only recognized it (once I got the system to see it at all heheh) as about 131070 MB. It is 250 Gigs though. . .what's up with this?

2) Do I need to make the RAID drivers floppy disk and use that when installing windows to get it to see my full hard drive capacity?

 

[johnh123]

Did you get an answer to this? I am just doing my install- sata, no raid- do I need a floppy?