Intel 965/ICH8R -- SATA not hot-swappable?

mudboy

Senior member
Mar 21, 2000
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I just finished putting together my new system, based on an Asus P5B Deluxe (P965/ICH8R). I have a SATA hotswap bay and after I got the OS loaded, I popped in my old boot drive (74GB Raptor, which has hot-swapped successfully before), and it wasn't recognized. Rebooted, and there's the drive. Popped it out after the reboot, and the old drive letters are still there rather than it knowing that the drive has disappeared and the drive letters going away. I installed the (non-RAID, since I'm not running RAID) drivers from the mobo CD and then ran the INF undater from Intel's site.

For those of you who are about to flame me for expecting hot-swap on a desktop system, I regularly work with large (>300GB) amounts of data. I take a hot-swap drive in to work to get the data so I can also work on it at home (which is where I work 80% of them time). Also, the A8N-SLI that this P5B replaced has hot-swap capability and it's over a year old, so I don't feel that it's too much to expect from a brand new $175 motherboard.

Doesn't the P965/ICH8R have hotswap capabilities?

Thanks

Pete
 

Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
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You need to configure the SATA interface for non-IDE mode ("native" or "AHCI"). Caution: You might need an OS reinstallation after you did that.
 

mudboy

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Mar 21, 2000
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That was it, and, yes, making the change in the BIOS caused a bluescreen on boot. Luckily, switching back wasn't a problem.

Is this something that can be avoided by removing the IDE/SATA drivers from my system and then rebooting with AHCI enabled? Or is it something beyond a driver issue? I ask because I've spent the past 24 hours doing a clean OS install and getting all of my apps running and I really don't feel like going through all that again.

Thanks,

Pete
 

Peter

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Oct 15, 1999
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It's a matter of what programming model is being used. When setting to "driverless" IDE compatible mode, you'll be running on generic IDE drivers that of course won't do hot swap. When running a native SATA model - either proprietary or standardized AHCI - you'll need drivers, but then you'll get all the features the SATA controller /actually/ supports, not just the IDE compatible subset.

Now, Windows doesn't like it at all when the driver for its system volume changes. There are tricks to make it happen, but given you're on a fresh installation there, reinstalling it might be less of a hassle than attempting these tricks.
 

mudboy

Senior member
Mar 21, 2000
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Actually, I got it working. I hooked my drive up to the JMicron controller, switched the Intel SATA over to AHCI, booted into Windows, installed the Intel Matrix drivers, shut down, reattached my drive to the Intel SATA port, and booted up just fine. I have to go into the Matrix console and refresh plug and play devices to get the drive to initialize, but I can live with that.

Pete
 

mudboy

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Mar 21, 2000
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OK, final issue, once I get this resolved I think I'll be all done.

Now that I'm in AHCI mode, whenever I reboot, my optical drives (both SATA) and hard drives go through the "Found new hardware" routine. This is annoying, especially since I always change my optical drive letters to Y and Z.

The device report via Intel's Matrix Storage Console is as follows:

System Information

Kit Installed: 6.2.0.2002
Kit Install History: 6.2.0.2002
Shell Version: 6.2.0.2002

OS Name: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
System Name: HORTON
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
System Model: P5B-Deluxe
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz
BIOS Version/Date: American Megatrends Inc. 0614 , 09/05/2006

Language: ENU



Serial ATA Information

Intel Serial ATA Controller: Intel(R) 82801HR/HH/HO SATA AHCI Controller
Number of Serial ATA ports: 6

Driver Version: 6.2.0.2002
Serial ATA Plug-In Version: 6.2.0.2002
Language Resource Version of the Serial ATA Plug-In: 6.2.0.2002
ISDI Library Version: 6.2.0.2002

Hard Drive 0
Status: Normal
Device Port: 0
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1
Model: WDC WD740GD-00FLC0
Serial Number: WD-WMAKE2083125
Firmware: 33.08F33
Native Command Queuing Support: No
Size: 69.2 GB

Hard Drive 1
Status: Normal
Device Port: 1
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1
Model: WDC WD740GD-32FLA0
Serial Number: WD-WMAKE1134134
Firmware: 21.08U21
Native Command Queuing Support: No
Size: 69.2 GB

Hard Drive 2
Status: Normal
Device Port: 2
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1
Model: WDC WD4000KD-00NAB0
Serial Number: WD-WMAMY1026021
Firmware: 01.06A01
Native Command Queuing Support: Yes
Size: 372.6 GB

Unused Port 0
Device Port: 3
Device Port Location: Internal

CD/DVD Drive 0
Device Port: 4
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1
Model: LITE-ON DVDRW SH-16A7S
Serial Number: Data not reported
Firmware: WS04

CD/DVD Drive 1
Device Port: 5
Device Port Location: Internal
Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 1
Model: LITE-ON COMBO SHC-52S7K
Serial Number: '_Y|ã ­e05984629
Firmware: VK02





Is this a driver issue, or is this a BIOS settings issue? I didn't have the problem when the SATA ports were set to IDE, but of course then I couldn't hot-swap my hard drives.

Thanks

Pete
 

Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
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Windows should remember the hardware via registry settings. If it doesn't, then yes, that'll be some sort of driver issue, or even a Windows core issue.