If you're having troubles getting your ECS K75SA Mobo to detect your WD1200JB drive, look here..

[Salvador]

Hi,

I just put together my ECS K75SA mobo and 1800+ Athlon and I have a minor problem.

When I go to start my system, it either hangs on detecting my hard drive (set to primary master) on auto detect or it simply doesn't recognize it at all. When it doesn't recognize my hard disk at all, I hit reset and it usualy detects my hard drive the second time around, but after waiting for it to detect it (a minute or so).

I tried doing a search on this, but couldn't find anything. Has anyone had this problem?

Otherwise, everything else seems perfectly fine so far.

Any ideas, let me know?

TIA,

Sal

Edit: I changed the title of the thread because the problem is fixed. If you're having trouble getting your ECS mobo or any mobo to detect your WD1200JB drive in a master without slave configuration, try running without a jumper all together instead of running in cable select. This diagram was written on the label of my 3 yr warrantee WD1200JB drive and not the Dell OEM WD1200JB drive. It says to leave the jumper off if you plan to run a master without a slave present. If you run a master with a slave present, you put the jumper on the master position.

 

[athlonator]

I have a similar problem as the one you mention.

You have not mentioned whether it happens to you during any particular time, but for me I noticed that each time I simply unplugged a device and plugged it back on (like taking out the graphics card to clean the fan or something), the mobo would not recognise my hard drive.

In such cases the auto-detect fails. I have to then go into the bios and make sure that it the drive is detected from there (Hit enter on the selected drive and the bios will detect it). save your settings and reboot.

 

[lsman]

what drive you have? if its a WD. Try to set the jumper on the HD to cable select or better option is: look for the "SINGLE DRIVE" only option.
If you set it to Master and you have no drive on the slave. The board will look for it and it will take really long time... seem hang but eventually time-out. (well, you know it)

 

[Salvador]

It is the WD1200JB drive. Whenever I go to start my computer, it either doesn't detect the drive at all and goes right through the boot process and doesn't load windows or it hangs on auto detecting primary master. I don't know why it would hang, it doesn't seem like it's looking for a slave drive at that point.

It was a pain trying to format and install windows because it seemed like every other time I went to boot, it didn't detect my drive.

Do you think it's a compatibility issue with my drive and the ECS board or simply an ECS problem?

I guess I can try cable select, but I don't know why it would make a difference. You know.. WD1200JB drives also have a configuration for master without a slave. In this case, you are supposed to leave all jumpers off of the drive according to the label on the outside of the drive. I wonder if that would work?

I plan to run two of these drives on a Promise ATA100 controller (not RAID) very soon here. Should I still use Cable Select for this when I go to use the controller?

Thanks again.

Sal

 

[lsman]

trust me on this because i had the exact problem at first using this board and WD drive.
If it is a single drive on the primary channel, set the jumper to "single" (yes, if master without slave is what your drive say). "master" will cause the problem.
Enjoy!


Don't know who is to blame... Since this is my first on WD drive, i never notice that there is a "single" jumper option before. (most of the time use max and seagate before)
i think "cable select" and more preferable in todays hardware than before, rather than set it as master/slave.

 

[Peter]

Oh THAT ... I didn't expect that WD drives still have that. True, you need to set the drive to SINGLE correctly, else detection takes ages on some boards. I last saw that happen on a WD 1.2GB stoneage brick ...

regards, Peter

 

[Salvador]

It's fixed!! I have two WD1200JB drives. One of them is the 1 yr Dell warrantee OEM and the other is the 3 yr WD warranteed drive.

Anyway.. The 3 yr warrantee drive has a diagram on the label saying not to use a jumper at all if you are planning to to run master without a slave. Sure enough, I pulled the jumper so I'm jumperless and everything works perfectly.

Is this what you meant by single Isman?

I didn't want to use Cable Select because I don't buy into the theory of Cable Select as being the better choice these days. Cable Select is not new and it was primarily developed for the manufacturers like Dell to speed up the building process. That's what I understand anyway.

Well.. Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate it. Maybe this can help someone down the road if they run into the very same thing. Especially since the 1 yr warrantee WD1200JB drive does not have this jumper diagram on the label and there were a lot more of these drives sold than the 3 yr WD warrantee drive.

Chris

 

[lsman]

yes.
and "cable select" is the suggested option from the tech. support/ guide from WD when i first use my 30G WD on a old PC (these BIOS limit thing). So i understand it is a way to let the BIOS handle it for less user error.