SATA driver fails, ASUS A7V600-X
pucicu
Dear all,
I have an ASUS A7V600-X board with Award Bios (updated to the latest
available version), and with VT8377/VT8237 North- and Southbridge.
Now I would like to use a SATA II harddrive. It is a Hitachi 500 GB
drive: HI T7K500 500 SA. I know that VT8237 may have problems with SATA
II. But at the moment, even windows XP is not correctly starting the VIA
Raid/SCSI device. I have tried to install different versions of the
corresponding VIA drivers for VT8237. But in Windows device manager, I
see that it is not started but failed. In the readme.txt of the driver,
I found in a folder BIOS two rom files (e.g. 6420R230.rom), and a note
that it is a SATA RAID BIOS. Later it in this file I found
"Make sure VT6420 BIOS is executed by the system BIOS when POST."
But I don't know (1) how to check that this BIOS is executed and if
not, (2) how to tell the BIOS that it should execute this.
Moreover, in the BIOS I cannot find any settings releated to the
onboard SATA interface.
Does anyone have an idea, how I can get access to the SATA II drive?
Thank you very!
Best regards
Pucicu
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pucicu
sorry for double posting - but the forum server was just offline and
confused me.
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Chuck
That aside, it sounds like the currenty installed BIOS version does not
incorporate SATA support, since you have indicated that the BIOS SATA
options are missing.
BIOS versions after 1003 supposedly support SATA. Current Bios Version is
1009 (ASUS support web site.)
"pucicu" <pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com...
Paul
> Dear all,
>
> I have an ASUS A7V600-X board with Award Bios (updated to the latest
> available version), and with VT8377/VT8237 North- and Southbridge.
>
> Now I would like to use a SATA II harddrive. It is a Hitachi 500 GB
> drive: HI T7K500 500 SA. I know that VT8237 may have problems with SATA
> II. But at the moment, even windows XP is not correctly starting the VIA
> Raid/SCSI device. I have tried to install different versions of the
> corresponding VIA drivers for VT8237. But in Windows device manager, I
> see that it is not started but failed. In the readme.txt of the driver,
> I found in a folder BIOS two rom files (e.g. 6420R230.rom), and a note
> that it is a SATA RAID BIOS. Later it in this file I found
>
> "Make sure VT6420 BIOS is executed by the system BIOS when POST."
>
> But I don't know (1) how to check that this BIOS is executed and if
> not, (2) how to tell the BIOS that it should execute this.
>
> Moreover, in the BIOS I cannot find any settings releated to the
> onboard SATA interface.
>
> Does anyone have an idea, how I can get access to the SATA II drive?
>
> Thank you very!
> Best regards
> Pucicu
>
The Option ROM mentioned in the BIOS.txt file, is integrated inside
the motherboard BIOS chip. The motherboard BIOS is 256KB, and the
option ROM is one of the files inside the main BIOS. This is a listing
of which option ROM is included in each BIOS Asus offers for A7V600-X.
A7v6x002 6420R201.ROM
A7v6x003 6420R231.ROM
A7v6x004 6420R231.ROM
A7v6x005 6420R231.ROM
A7v6x006 6420R231.ROM
A7v6x007 6420R231.ROM
A7v6x008 6420R231.ROM
A7v6x009 6420R231.ROM
To enable the option ROM, find the "Onboard ATA Boot ROM" entry in
the BIOS, and make sure it is set to [Enabled]. The Asus manual says
that setting is for "Onboard Serial ATA Controller boot rom". And
that is the 6420R2xx file referenced above. That file provided
Extended INT 0x13 boot services. It is possible, that part of the
code in that module, sets a subsystem bit that allows the
RAID driver to identify that the RAID controller is present.
The BIOS default for the setting is [Enabled], so it should
have been working already.
One thread I was just reading, mentioned that the addition of
a PCI SCSI card, can prevent the 6420R2xx option ROM from
loading. There is limited space in low memory, for option ROMs,
and it is not uncommon for some of the option ROMs to fail
to load, due to no space to put them in memory. So if the computer
has add-in cards, that is a potential reason for the option
ROM to not load.
This manual for 6420, says that a single drive should work.
So I don't think the loading failure, is due to the driver
or the BIOS looking for two drives and not finding them.
http://support.asus.com/technicaldocuments/VT6420.pdf
"Using Hard Drives as Non-RAID
Drives connected to the VIA RAID connectors do not have to be set up in a RAID array in
order for them to work. By simply not assigning them to an array, they can be used like
any other drive connected to the board�s main IDE connectors."
The Hitachi drives don't generally have a jumper to set the speed.
You need the Hitachi Feature Tool, and a non-VIA chipset
motherboard, to use the Tool to change the drive interface speed.
You would use that tool to set or to verify the interface speed
is set to SATA 150MB/sec. Once that is done, the drive can be
plugged into a VT8237 motherboard. So if you're the owner of a
VIA chipset motherboard, chances are you'll need a SATA port
on some other motherboard, to be able to talk to the Hitachi
drive, and change the setting. (My motherboard has a VT8237S, and
as far as I know, that is the only VIA Southbridge, where the
SATA issue has been fixed. My chipset runs at 150 or 300, without
any help.)
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#FeatureTool
At this point, I don't see a reason to be flashing the BIOS.
Paul
pucicu
Thanks, Chuck.
As I wrote in my first post, I updated already to the latest Bios
(which is indeed rev. 1009). Thus, there must be another problem.
Bob Harris
The problem was not really a BIOS setting, although I did need to enable
on-board ATA device enabled and on-board ATA device first, which are BIOS
settings. But, I had to do more than that.
The key to my success was to realize that besides the overall motherboard
BIOS, there was a second BIOS, or BIOS-like entity, that handled the SATA
controllers. This would have been more obvious, if the controllers were on
a separate PCI card. But, since there are part of the motherboard, I missed
that nuance. Anyway, after most of the BIOS checks are completed my PC
flashes a message about press CTRL-F for the Fastrack controller. (Fastrack
is specific to the Promise controllers. If you have some other controller,
then its name is probably a different.)
Once inside the software, called FastBuild, I had to create some RAID
arrays. I chose to create two independent disks, or two arrarys of one
physical disk each. It was only after I did this that the main BIOS listed
the hard drives, showed their capacity, etc. Note that at this point the
drives had not yet been partitioned nor formatted, but the BIOS could see
them.
At was after this point that booting from a CD of disk tool, downloaded form
the disk manufacture's website, permitted me to partition and format.
Previously the disk tools showed no hard drives. I then installed XP using
its bootable CD. Of course, you could also do partitioning from the XP CD.
Some years later I swapped these disks for larger ones. Once again my PC
could not see any disks. So, I went back into the FastBuild program and
discovered that it kept track of disks by some internal ID, and knew that I
had changed them. Thus, I had to remove the original RAID arrays and make
new ones. I did this one at a time, since I wanted to clone my old disks to
my new disks, and that required the BIOS to be able to see one old and one
new at the same time. But, in the end, I had completely new disks, in
completely new RAID arrays (still one disk per array).
Beyond the BIOS and the SATA contoller, there is XP. But, there is no hope
for XP, until after the BIOS can see the disk.
Note: The drivers required by XP are associated with the controller on the
motherboard, not with the hard drive. As such they come form the
motherboard maker. However, these are not required for the BIOS to see the
hard drive. In fact, the BIOS has no way to read an XP-type driver.
Good luck.
"pucicu" <pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com...
>
Andrew E.
are no big deal to any SATA controller,even 6 or 7 year old MBs should
have no problems what so ever..The problems with SATA & RAID set-up
usually lye in the improper user settings in the BIOS..Most SATA/RAID
controllers
are disabled by the mfg,by default.Enable in usually,advanced
chipset,"Integrated
Peripherals" or similiar,also,set for IDE use if needed,after set boot
priority.After
BIOS,create a RAID set,boot to xp cd,press F6 option..
pucicu
Dear all,
thank you very much for your helpful responses! In particular, Bob's
remarks are very helpful.
Andrew: In the bios there is only a setting for "ATA boot rom" and this
was already enabled. There are no other settings for SATA devices. There
isn't any setting for an IDE compatibility. Perhaps this appears only in
newer MBs.
Bob: In the manual of the MB there are also note on these Raid
settings. But it say, I should press the Tab button. I have tried this
many times, but I'm not able to enter the Raid settings. The button is
just ignored. Several days ago I had the same idea of what you have
explained here. But, because I couldn't enter the raid settings, I
suspected that it is perhaps not on the board. I have no idea how can
enter this Raid settings alternatively.
Best regards
pucicu
SC Tom
"pucicu" <pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com...
>
If you're trying to set up RAID, you'll need two identical drives unless
you're setting up JBOD. But even that doesn't mention using an IDE drive
(section 3.4 in the manual). Then in section 3.4.2, in the VIA Tech RAID
BIOS set-up, it doesn't show anything but ". . .attached to VIA IDE
Controller." I'm not sure you're going to be able to accomplish what you
want to do.
Here's a link to the manual in case you don't have one:
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socka/kt600/a7v600-x/e1873_a7v600-x.pdf
SC Tom
pucicu
Dear all,
because there is no solution using the original motherboard, I have now
installed an additional SATA controller (PCI card). Now it is working.
Mr. Smith
<pucicu...@DoNotSpam.com> wrote:
>
>Dear all,
>
>because there is no solution using the original motherboard, I have now
>installed an additional SATA controller (PCI card). Now it is working.
>
>Best regards
>Pucicu
Too bad nobody knows what you are really talking about. Learn how to
post properly please
pucicu
By reading the initial posting it should be clear what I'm talking
about. The several posters which have given me some hints obviously have
understood my problem - and I appreciate very much much their time and
effort to try to help me.
rept...@gmail.com
I was able to install Windows XP on that motherboard by using a jumper to force the hard drive to operate at 1.5Gps instead of the 3Gps for newer hard drives.
See the thread here :
http://superuser.com/questions/11353/whats-the-jumper-enable-1-5gb-phy-on-a-western-digital-hard-disk
That worked a few years ago and now I changed the hard drive for another one, transfer the jumper over and it was detected in the bios (actually it shows the hard disk after the BIOS POST under the raid management, you can use TAB to show the options and manage raid drives). Sadly even after slipstreaming the appropriate drivers (as far as I know at least) using nLite, Windows XP would refuse to see the drive. I finally ended up install Windows 7 on it, it's not going to be fast but at least it works. No special drivers required on Windows 7, everything was detected correctly when using the 1.5gbs jumper on a 500Gb Seagate drive.
Good luck to all.
Paul
> On Saturday, September 19, 2009 7:09:55 PM UTC-4, pucicu wrote:
>> By reading the initial posting it should be clear what I'm talking
>> about. The several posters which have given me some hints obviously have
>> understood my problem - and I appreciate very much much their time and
>> effort to try to help me.
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> pucicu's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/135120.htm
>> View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/xp-hardware/1246404.htm
>>
>> http://forums.techarena.in
>
> It's a rather old thread but it might find useful for people
> searching online and looking for a solution.
>
> I was able to install Windows XP on that motherboard by using
> a jumper to force the hard drive to operate at 1.5Gps instead of
> the 3Gps for newer hard drives.
>
> See the thread here :
>
> http://superuser.com/questions/11353/whats-the-jumper-enable-1-5gb-phy-on-a-western-digital-hard-disk
>
> That worked a few years ago and now I changed the hard drive for
> another one, transfer the jumper over and it was detected in the
> bios (actually it shows the hard disk after the BIOS POST under the
> raid management, you can use TAB to show the options and manage raid
> drives). Sadly even after slipstreaming the appropriate drivers (as far
> as I know at least) using nLite, Windows XP would refuse to see the
> drive. I finally ended up install Windows 7 on it, it's not going to be
> fast but at least it works. No special drivers required on Windows 7,
> everything was detected correctly when using the 1.5gbs jumper on a
> 500Gb Seagate drive.
>
> Good luck to all.
SATA III drive, and using the jumper makes it
a SATA II drive. See if there is any documentation
for the drive, to verify what the jumper does.
Older drives are SATA II, and using the jumper makes
them SATA I.
The problem is supposed to be a negotiation issue.
Chipsets like VT8237, get "stuck" and don't know the
negotiation sequence. Using the jumper, negates the
need for negotiation, by selecting the correct
operating speed right away. But if you jumper
a SATA III drive to SATA II rates, the negotiation
should still fail. As it did with a native SATA II drive.
The VT8237S, used on some Asrock boards, has that
particular bug fixed. Still, when I tested a
SATA III drive on my Asrock SATA II VT8237S motherboard
about a month ago, operation was flaky, and I had to
stop. So now, I just run SATA II drives on there
(without using the jumper). Even with the bug fix, the
VT8237S still isn't perfect.
You could try a third-party add-in controller
board. Problem is, finding something for PCI
bus, that doesn't suck. I would definitely not
recommend a VIA chip, that's for sure. Not after
seeing my VT8237S not work right on SATA. The
cheapest SATA cards, use a VIA chip.
Paul