Asus P8Z68-V: SATA 3G ports not recognizing HDD in BIOS???!!

[mjavid]

Hi all,
I got myself the above MB.

My 80GB Seagate Barracuda SATA-1 drive is only intermittently and mostly not recognized by the BIOS when I connect it to the 4 SATA 3 GB ports. Same problem when I use my Corsair Nova series 64 GB SATA-2 SSD, so it does not appear to be due to the older interface. No problems when I use the SATA 6G ports, but only have 2 in this board.

The SATA mode I am using is "RAID".

The OS is Win7 Ultimate 64 bit. A clean install was done. All drivers loaded

Using integrated graphics only.

Memory is GSkill (F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL) 2 GB x 2 1600MHz at auto settings.

I updated the BIOS to the latest version (0606).

The HDD is not the problem as it works fine with the 6 GB ports.

Doubt the OS can be blamed, as when the problem occurs, BIOS does not recognize the drive and the UEFI menu opens up.

This is a serious problem for me as I was planning on running a SSD as the boot disk and two SATA-2 drives in RAID 1 for data. I need at least 3 SATA ports (2 for RAID, 1 for non-RAID OS SSD).

Needless to say highly disappointed, as I did not expect this from a $180 ASUS board.

Anyone have any idea what is happening and how to fix it?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I've occasionally had problems on other boards and chipsets over "backward"/"forward" compatibility between SATA-1[150] and SATA-2 or -3. Or so I thought I did. I've had troubles for setting an "SATA-150-mode" jumper on an SATA-2 drive, but haven't determined conclusively if it isn't just the drive gone bad.

I updated my v-Pro to the same BIOS version. You might want to check OS settings for whether the drive goes to sleep under "power options," and so on. Is it configured in BIOS as "hot-swappable?"

See, here's my point. Today's "one-day-only" sale at NewEgg has a sale-price of some $50 for a Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 SATA-2 drive.

Why fret over an 80 GB SATA-150? Could you not put it in an external drive box for e-SATA or (possibly even) USB-2 interface, and use it for backup? Sure, you'd rather not spend the $50 to pay only $0.05/GB, But you might want to use that 80 GB drive in a different configuration, test it for failure or just recycle it to your local recycler and move on. Heck -- you might be able to find an SATA-2 drive with lesser capacity (lesser than the F3) for less, although even the near-obsolete drives of lower capacity are disproportionately priced for their capacity as you move down the scale.

 

[Binky]

I didn't know there were non-SSD 80GB SATA drives. But...you're attempting to mix a rather old $20 drive with a new $180 motherboard. I'm not surprised that there are issues.

 

[mjavid]

I didn't know there were non-SSD 80GB SATA drives. But...you're attempting to mix a rather old $20 drive with a new $180 motherboard. I'm not surprised that there are issues.

I attempted to use the old drive in the first place when my Corsair Nova Series 64 GB SSD (SATA-2) was repeatedly not recognized by the SATA-2 ports.

Also the very same drive (old 80 GB SATA-1) is working fine on the SATA-3 ports, in fact I'm typing this right now on that very same system, after a successful boot-up on first attempt after a complete power off. I am going to use 3 SATA-2 drives eventually, but I did not want to do a migration from my old system (IP 35 Pro, non-RAID SSD boot drive, 2 320 GB WDs in RAID 0) till these issues were settled.

I did try enabling hot swap and it did not solve the problem.

I will double check the sleep options as per Bonzai Duck.

 

[mjavid]

I updated my v-Pro to the same BIOS version. You might want to check OS settings for whether the drive goes to sleep under "power options," and so on. Is it configured in BIOS as "hot-swappable?"

I will do that, but its not a sleep problem, as either its not detected at boot (mostly), but when it is, then it seems to work till the computer is restarted.

Are you using the SATA-2 or 3 ports?

Is your SATA mode AHCI or RAID?

As far as I know, both boards (v and v-pro) are basically the same with an extra Marvell controller for 2 more SATA-3 ports? I actually ordered a pro first, got the le shipped to me by mistake, did a return and refund on that, eventually got this, so not getting too lucky with Z-68 upgrade!