Abit IX38 Bios Hard Drive Detection Issues

[MyLeftNut]

I got a wierd problem here. First of all, I got 4 hard drives connected to this motherboard.
1) Seagate 7200.10 320GB (SATA-2)
2) Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB (SATA-1)
3) Western Digital Caviar WD3200JD 320GB (SATA-1)
4) Western Digital Caviar WD3200JD 320GB (SATA-1)

Motherboard bios: latest v13 Abit IX38 bios

Now the issue is that if I clear the CMOS and unplug all power sources to the motherboard and let it sit for like 10 mins, it will detect the seagate hard drive fine. But, if I shutdown and disconnect all power sources to the board, then try to power up again, it won't detect the seagate. The only way I can get it to detect is to power it off disconnected for 10mins and clear CMOS.

This issue doesn't affect my other 3 hard drives, the maxtor and 2 WD's at all. Initially, I thought it might be that there's some problem with detecting SATA-2 drives, but I jumpered the drive to SATA-1 and still the same problem. I've also seen reviews of this same motherboard with the same seagate hard drive that I have, but it could have different firmware revisions on the hard drive (I got the very early release).

Right now, I'm thinking it's the bios that's the problem as the drive has been working on my P5B Deluxe as always. Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences with this kinda problem?

 

[MyLeftNut]

Forgot to mention, I did try all the different Sata ports and it's all the same.

 

[sgrinavi]

I just put together one of those boards with 4 of the same segate drive. The drives work fine. Did you try it with just that drive?

 

[MyLeftNut]

Nice, someone using the same hardware!

Yeah, I've tried just the seagate drive alone and in all 6 different SATA ports which result in the same outcome. I'm thinking it might be a motherboard bios issue having problems with this earlier batch of Seagate 7200.10 320GB hard drives.

Here's some more information on the seagate drive I'm using, let me know what you have.

Seagate ST3320620AS
Firmware: 3.AAC
Date Code: 06433
Site Code: AMK
Product of Singapore

I bought it when it first came out as soon as a large online retailer here got em in stock. I know there were known issues with these 320gb drives, but those were only affecting certain firmware versions such as the AAK firmware and another one. From my research online, it looks like the AAC is one of the good batches sought after.

This drive has no problems at all on my P5B Deluxe, which is why I'm thinking it's the Abit bios. Again, the Abit will detect the drive, but only on a clean bios boot where I've cleared the bios and unplugged all power sources. The problem then re-occurs when I shutdown the computer and "switch off the powersupply". Then I gotta clear cmos again etc for like 5 mins to get it to detect again.

Strange isn't it?

 

[MyLeftNut]

Another thing I forgot to mention is that there's 3 primary partitions on that seagate drive which contains the boot partition and another system partition. Here's the setup:

Partition [C:] - Windows Vista x64
Partition [D:] - Windows XP
Partition [E:] - Primary Partition (storage)

Similarly, the other hard drives also have 3 primary partitions, but non containing OS's. Would this have any effect on bios hard drive detection?