At the moment I'm using the one Sinner posted that is the modded version of F11 with the SATA BIOS upgrade.
What totally doesn't make sense to me is why it won't recognize it from a cold boot in the SATA BIOS, but after windows loads and it is plugged in and recognized, it will see it on the SATA BIOS so long as you reboot, but turning on and off the computer at any time will again have it vanish. I've never seen or heard of this problem before, as it sounds like most other people with the problem have gotten it to work by switching to RAID or haven't gotten it to work at all...
I would definately try a new bios but mine as you stated isnt that version. It is actually 7n400pro. I tried the one posted towards the beginning of this thread to no avail. Giagabyte bios's are terrible,
Hi, im pretty new to this site i have downloaded the gigabyte 7n400pro2 rev1 bios for my mobo, the one that spinner made with the latest silicon 3512a hoping to fix the error that i keep getting "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" but this did not work, it used to load the siliconLINK 3512a bios then detect the drive on the main screen before locating my drive but now it does not, i am running a 120gb maxtor SATA drive as a main drive could sum1 please help me ?
It seems that a majority of the problems here involve the Maxtor drives.
I found this cruising the Silicon Image site.
When using the Marvell SATA-IDE adapter with a Maxtor ATA133 HD, there is a compatibility issue between the Maxtor drive and the Marvell bridge chip that does not allow it to operate at ATA133 when using SATA. You must make sure that the Marvell SATA-IDE adapter is configured for ATA100/UDMA5. If it is set for ATA133/UDMA6, the hard drive will not work.
I know you may not be using any adapter but it is worth a try to get the drive working on the SATA channel. Just use the Maxtor tools to set the drive to ATA-100 UDMA5.
I think that it is just the bios, could spinners have been made wrong? Is any1 elses working? the si3512a loading thing that usually detects the hdd does not come up like on my old bios and i dont have my old bios to put back, it mite sound a silly but does anyone have an original bios where the si3512a bios screen actually comes up? i really want my PC working again
It seems that a majority of the problems here involve the Maxtor drives.
I found this cruising the Silicon Image site.
I know you may not be using any adapter but it is worth a try to get the drive working on the SATA channel. Just use the Maxtor tools to set the drive to ATA-100 UDMA5.
Hi Tmod,
Yes it does seem that way but two things:
1. My Maxtors work perfectly at ATA133/UDMA6 on a Serillel adapter.
2. You can't change modes on nVIDIA based boards using Maxtor utilities.
Note: PowerMax v 4.09 will not detect ATA or SATA hard disks connected to embedded or add in RAID controllers, NVIDIA Force 3, Force 4, VIA KT 600 and KT800 chipsets.
Two things:
1. My Maxtors work perfectly at ATA133/UDMA6 on a Serillel adapter.
2. You can't change modes on nVIDIA based boards using Maxtor utilities.
I think that it is just the bios, could spinners have been made wrong? Is any1 elses working? the si3512a loading thing that usually detects the hdd does not come up like on my old bios and i dont have my old bios to put back
I don't think Spinner made any mistakes on that bios.
Just download the version you had and give it a try again with a stock bios.
I think i kno what is wrong now, would anyone be able to make a gigabyte ga-7n400 pro 2 (rev1) bios that has just the standard (base) controller and not the raid i run a sata drive as the main drive ?
If your board has a RAID controller, you have to flash the correct bios.
Whether you use a single drive or a RAID array it doesn't matter, the correct bios has to be used.
I'm pretty confident Spinner used the correct bios so your problem could be your HD, cables or bios configuration related.
I think i kno what is wrong now, would anyone be able to make a gigabyte ga-7n400 pro 2 (rev1) bios that has just the standard (base) controller and not the raid i run a sata drive as the main drive ?
If you know where to locate the bios for the non-raid I will give it a shot.
Here is what a Asus board owner had to do to get his maxtor recognized in the bios. May help you I don't know.
OK...I tried a number of things, but I believe this is what did it...
I disconnected all drives, powered up, entered BIOS setup.
On the MAIN screen where all the drives are listed [all NOT DETECTED @ this point obviously], underneath is an option for IDE CONFIGURATION.
I selected this and was taken to another screen with many options...there is one that defines HOW the drives are detected...
The selected value was QUICK. The only other option for this was NORMAL.
I switched it to NORMAL, powered down, plugged in the 300GB drive on its' own, powered up. After about 30 seconds of scanning, was able to enter BIOS [PC did not freeze], on the MAIN screen was able to see the drive!
Powered down, plugged in original drive to SATA1 and new drive to SATA2, powered up, entered BIOS, able to see BOTH drives !!!
Exited BIOS, proceeded to boot into Windows without any problem. Under Disk Management, drive shows up as 279.47GB.
Restarted machine, entered BIOS, changed IDE detection setting back to QUICK, exited/saved BIOS, PC booted up and detected both drives without problems.
From Maxtor (Some will not apply to you)
# Faulty Data Cable
The BIOS will not detect a hard disk if the data cable is damaged or the connection is incorrect. Maxtor recommends using UDMA cabling with a maximum length of 18 inches. UDMA cables have color coded connections which require proper orientation when connecting. The blue connector always connects to the motherboard. The gray middle connector is used for slave devices on the cable. The Black connector is used for Master device connection. Always inspect the motherboard, and hard disk connections for bent or misaligned pins. Folding, crimping, pinching, or creasing data cables can cause the wires to break inside the insulation, leaving the exterior of the cable looking normal. When in doubt of data cable condition replace it.
Picture of an Ultra ATA data cable.
# No Power to drive (drive is not spinning up)
If the drive is not receiving power or an incorrect level of power (12v) it will not spin up. To check to see if this is the cause of the BIOS not detecting the hard drive follow these steps.
1. With the system turned off, open the computer case and remove the data cable only from the hard drive. This will stop any “power saving” commands from being sent to the drive.
2. Turn on the system. Check to see if the hard drive is spinning. If you touch the side of the drive you should feel a slight vibration. If you do not hear or feel the hard drive spinning you will need to find out if the drive is getting power.
3. In some cases it is necessary to remove the drive from the case and physically hold it in your hands, due to system fans vibrating and making too much noise to observe the drive spinning while mounted.
4. If removing the drive is necessary, be sure to use a grounding strap, and do not hot plug power to the drive. Hold it in your hand, connect the power cable, and then power the system on.
If the drive is not spinning please visit the Warranty Information Page.
# Incorrect jumper settings on the drive
All Maxtor hard disks supporting the Cable Select jumper option should be configured as Cable Select. If your computer system was built prior to October 1998 and does not support UDMA 66 or greater you will be required to use the Master/Slave jumper settings.
When using Cable Select jumper settings, all devices connected to the UDMA cable must also use the Cable Select setting. The cable decides master/slave device detection when cable select jumper settings are used. The black cable connector always detects the device as master. The gray connector always detects the device as a slave. Please consult the Jumper Setting Page for further instructions.
# Capacity of the hard drive is too large for the BIOS to support
Computer systems built prior to October of 1998 typically hang or freeze while auto detecting large hard disks during system startup. Common BIOS capacity barriers include 528 MB, 2.1 GB, 8.4 GB, and 32 GB. There are multiple solutions to work around BIOS capacity barriers, always disconnect the ATA and power cables first before entering the BIOS, to keep the system from hanging.
To troubleshoot this problem follow these steps.
1. Restart and enter the system BIOS to set the drive parameters manually. (Entering the system BIOS is usually accomplished by pressing F1, F2, or DEL right after powering the system on. Look for an on-screen message stating which key to press.)
2. Set the BIOS parameters for the drive from Auto-Detect to None, or Off.
3. Save settings, exit setup, and power the system off.
4. Save BIOS settings and exit.
5. Reconnect the power and ATA cables, power the system on and boot to the MaxBlast CD or Floppy.
6. When the system boots to the MaxBlast program, choose the Utilities option and select Set Drive Size.
7. MaxBlast will register the maximum LBA the system BIOS can accommodate. Agree to the recommended settings MaxBlast has supplied, and finish the process.
8. Restart, enter the system BIOS, and set the drives parameters back to Auto-Detect.
9. Save settings, exit setup and reboot to the MaxBlast CD or Floppy and run the normal install. When finished partitioning and formatting the drive, follow the instructions to install Windows.
Alternate Settings: Steps 1 and 2 above will not work on some system BIOS’s. This will be noticed by the system still hanging at startup or MaxBlast being unable to detect the drive after the BIOS has been set to none.
1. Try setting the drives parameters to a User Definable Type with 1024 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors.
2. Set the LBA to Normal, Standard or Disabled, Write Pre Comp (WpCom) and Landing Zone (LZ) settings; can be set to zero.
3. Save settings, exit setup, and power the system off.
4. Reconnect the power and ATA cables, power the system on, and boot to the MaxBlast CD or Floppy.
5. Perform the MaxBlast normal install without using the set drive size feature.
If MaxBlast doesn't detect the drive and you followed all the troubleshooting steps above you may need contact your motherboard manufacturer for a BIOS upgrade or purchase an Ultra ATA PCI adapter card. Maxtor's online store, www.MaxStore.com, offers a complete line of Ultra ATA PCI cards that provides support for large capacity drives.
# Faulty Hard Drive If after all the above checks and procedures have been performed, you are still having trouble installing the drive, or O/S. It is recommended to run the PowerMax, drive diagnostic utility, to determine if the drive is defective. If PowerMax returns an error code please proceed to the Warranty Information Page.
Sorry to be the party pooper but the problem is that ALL onboard controllers are RAID so flashing the IDE non-raid bios to it screws up the booting process.
Sorry to be the party pooper but the problem is that ALL onboard controllers are RAID so flashing the IDE non-raid bios to it screws up the booting process.
No party pooping going on here, Just taking stabs in the dark.
OK, thought I would throw in my input on problems I have been having. My goal was to get use 2 16mb 300 gig Maxtor's to run as a Raid 1 on my rig. I was going to Ghost my existing build to 1 300gig and then Raid it from there. Well, that did not happen. The 2 drives are 16mb 300gig Maxtor's with different manufacturing dates of Sep. 04 and Oct. 04 with a small difference in PCBs which tells me they are distinctly different manufacturing runs. My main rig is Abit NF7-S Ultra, latest BIOS with .50 controller BIOS and I also tested with a Gigabyte 7N400 Pro 2 rev. 1 board and a Foxconn 865M01-G-6ELS (Intel board with Serial controller integrated to Southbridge). I want to note that although some things involved being in Windows, all the later testing (on both boards) was purely seeing whether the SI bios would detect the drive as if it did not see it, Windows sure as heck wasn't going to. Also note that both the Abit and Gigabyte boards use the SI 3112 controller.
The Abit will detect but it is flaky detection city: First drive made it all the way through a full format in Windows and a Ghost 2003 clone operation before starting to be flake. After the clone operation I attempted to boot and got about half way through before a "unmountable boot volume" error. Upon reboot, the SI Bios does not detect the drive. Reset-button: finds then drops again. Reset again: drive gone. Reset again: still gone. Full power off: still gone. Reset button: It's back but then errors out and upon reset: gone.
Unplug drive and plug in previous drive (250 gig Maxtor 8mb that has never given me problems). Boot up into Windows plugin hot:Windows sees it for a second but cannot fully mount the drive (I get a blank drive letter with a red x in explorer which tells me Windows did briefly see the drive). Reboot and it shows up. F8 to prevent windows startup and reset button and (no) Surprise: gone. Rinse lather and repeat through all manner of cable (both serial and power) swap outs. The only thing consistent is on and off detection.
Try other drive. This one makes it to 100% format in Windows then crashes system. Hard reset: drive is gone. Another reset: drive is there. F8 to halt boot up and reset: drive gone. Hmmmm, can we say Deja Vu?
Bust out the 7N400 Pro 2 rev. 1 and no detect at all on boot up (SI BIOS). That is as much as I tested as I was thoroughly disgusted at this point. I imagine that if I kept fiddling with the 7N400 I would probably be able to get it to eventually detect and then drop ala the previous problems.
OK, Foxconn time: No problems. None. Detects every time through numerous full power downs, hard resets and soft Windows reboots. Rock steady, cannot get the drive to drop.
Being a glutton for punishment, I see that CompUSA has the 250gig 16mb Maxtors on sale for $150.00 so I go get one. Manufacturing date of Sept. 04. Full format in Windows no problems. Variety of full power, soft and hard resets: No problems, cannot get the drive to drop. Ah computers....
So the working hypothesis at this point is that there is early hardware revision flakiness on the part of Maxtor's 300 gig drives and the SI 3112 controller. My only guess as to why the 250gigs don't have a problem would be that the 250gig architecture overall is more mature and stable although I think earlier in this thread somebody was having problems with a 200gig drive and that would blow my theory. It's a tough call to conclude much more than that as I would like an additional motherboard with a 3112 controller to test with as we all know how crappy the SATA is on these 7N400 boards and one may experience all manner of problems with an otherwise problem free drive. But I don't have any other mobo with a 3112 controller on it.
Barring another SI BIOS release in the next few days (that fixes everything), I'm planning on RMAing the 2 300 gigers back to Newegg and getting another 250gig from CompUSA and proceeding with my RAID plans with those. There simply isn't anything else to try and no other option that I see. :shakehead
=/
Looks like u r the guy Equito.
So I ll ask one more thing.
Does ncq really improves performance in a desktop comp?
Planning about a Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM SATA
(i know im abit of topic here)
Anyway, thnx for your help, this forum rox.
And bios mod was damn nice and easy to use on my gigabyte mobo(Looks like u all hate GB).
A Big Thank You to Spinner and Tmod. I used the repackaged FK version of the driver for the Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 2 found on this notice board (http://www.short-media.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14116) it fixed all the issues with using SATA RAID and Windows XP hanging whilxt booting. It also fixed Ghost32 problems withing Windoes PE.
Never thought I would have to download a BIOS from a notice board and use on my main PC.
Looks like u r the guy Equito.
Does ncq really improves performance in a desktop comp?
Anyway, thnx for your help, this forum rox.
Thanks but I'm not "the guy", you should talk to Tex, he's "the one"...
I don't have any experience with NCQ drives so I couldn't tell you much except that I heard they transfer faster.
Thanks but I'm not "the guy", you should talk to Tex, he's "the one"...
I don't have any experience with NCQ drives so I couldn't tell you much except that I heard they transfer faster.
Glad to be of help.
Tex' may be "The One" but you're certainly "Morpheus" mate.
I have found the BIOS version 4.2.50 (r4250.bin) for my PCI card controller SATA 3112 RAID.
Actually, my BIOS is in the version 4.2.47.
I have the software "UpdBIOS" and "UpdFlash" too.
Unfortunately, this operation didn't function :
updflash r4250.bin -a -d -v -ID3112
Otherwise, i don't understand the syntax of "updbios" : updbios input_file output_file R
What must i type ? updbios r4250.bin xxxx R
Regards
My Motherboard is an EPOX 8K3A+ (no SATA controller)
Just to clarify...
Copy the 'updflash' to a floppy disk as well as the 'r4250' bin file.
You then need to boot into DOS using a floppy boot disk. You can download one from the SM downloads section if necessary.
Once in DOS type 'a:' to access the floppy drive. (If you're not already there)
Then type 'updflash r4250.bin'
That should work. Your original command line should also have worked, but typically you would only use the IDxxxx line if you had more than one PCI card and didn't want to be prompted as to which one you wanted flashing. The other parameters were also only optional, for the sake of simplicity leave them out for now.
Try the above again, and then post back. The 'updbios' utility is for creating your own custom BIOS files... I think.
Comments
At the moment I'm using the one Sinner posted that is the modded version of F11 with the SATA BIOS upgrade.
What totally doesn't make sense to me is why it won't recognize it from a cold boot in the SATA BIOS, but after windows loads and it is plugged in and recognized, it will see it on the SATA BIOS so long as you reboot, but turning on and off the computer at any time will again have it vanish. I've never seen or heard of this problem before, as it sounds like most other people with the problem have gotten it to work by switching to RAID or haven't gotten it to work at all...
Ahhh i just noticed you have the rev1 board. Never mind then.
Tmod
thanx a lot in advance
I found this cruising the Silicon Image site.
I know you may not be using any adapter but it is worth a try to get the drive working on the SATA channel. Just use the Maxtor tools to set the drive to ATA-100 UDMA5.
Yes it does seem that way but two things:
1. My Maxtors work perfectly at ATA133/UDMA6 on a Serillel adapter.
2. You can't change modes on nVIDIA based boards using Maxtor utilities.
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=22
Well that blows that idea out of the water then.
I think we are running out of options here.
I don't think Spinner made any mistakes on that bios.
Just download the version you had and give it a try again with a stock bios.
Tmod
Whether you use a single drive or a RAID array it doesn't matter, the correct bios has to be used.
I'm pretty confident Spinner used the correct bios so your problem could be your HD, cables or bios configuration related.
If you know where to locate the bios for the non-raid I will give it a shot.
Tmod
Well that shoots that down as well.
I know there is a different bios for RAID & NON RAID on the PCI card so I figured there might be different version for the onboard as well.
Back to the drawing board.
From Maxtor (Some will not apply to you)
No party pooping going on here, Just taking stabs in the dark.
The Abit will detect but it is flaky detection city: First drive made it all the way through a full format in Windows and a Ghost 2003 clone operation before starting to be flake. After the clone operation I attempted to boot and got about half way through before a "unmountable boot volume" error. Upon reboot, the SI Bios does not detect the drive. Reset-button: finds then drops again. Reset again: drive gone. Reset again: still gone. Full power off: still gone. Reset button: It's back but then errors out and upon reset: gone.
Unplug drive and plug in previous drive (250 gig Maxtor 8mb that has never given me problems). Boot up into Windows plugin hot:Windows sees it for a second but cannot fully mount the drive (I get a blank drive letter with a red x in explorer which tells me Windows did briefly see the drive). Reboot and it shows up. F8 to prevent windows startup and reset button and (no) Surprise: gone. Rinse lather and repeat through all manner of cable (both serial and power) swap outs. The only thing consistent is on and off detection.
Try other drive. This one makes it to 100% format in Windows then crashes system. Hard reset: drive is gone. Another reset: drive is there. F8 to halt boot up and reset: drive gone. Hmmmm, can we say Deja Vu?
Bust out the 7N400 Pro 2 rev. 1 and no detect at all on boot up (SI BIOS). That is as much as I tested as I was thoroughly disgusted at this point. I imagine that if I kept fiddling with the 7N400 I would probably be able to get it to eventually detect and then drop ala the previous problems.
OK, Foxconn time: No problems. None. Detects every time through numerous full power downs, hard resets and soft Windows reboots. Rock steady, cannot get the drive to drop.
Being a glutton for punishment, I see that CompUSA has the 250gig 16mb Maxtors on sale for $150.00 so I go get one. Manufacturing date of Sept. 04. Full format in Windows no problems. Variety of full power, soft and hard resets: No problems, cannot get the drive to drop. Ah computers....
So the working hypothesis at this point is that there is early hardware revision flakiness on the part of Maxtor's 300 gig drives and the SI 3112 controller. My only guess as to why the 250gigs don't have a problem would be that the 250gig architecture overall is more mature and stable although I think earlier in this thread somebody was having problems with a 200gig drive and that would blow my theory. It's a tough call to conclude much more than that as I would like an additional motherboard with a 3112 controller to test with as we all know how crappy the SATA is on these 7N400 boards and one may experience all manner of problems with an otherwise problem free drive. But I don't have any other mobo with a 3112 controller on it.
Barring another SI BIOS release in the next few days (that fixes everything), I'm planning on RMAing the 2 300 gigers back to Newegg and getting another 250gig from CompUSA and proceeding with my RAID plans with those. There simply isn't anything else to try and no other option that I see. :shakehead
Looks like u r the guy Equito.
So I ll ask one more thing.
Does ncq really improves performance in a desktop comp?
Planning about a Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM SATA
(i know im abit of topic here)
Anyway, thnx for your help, this forum rox.
And bios mod was damn nice and easy to use on my gigabyte mobo(Looks like u all hate GB).
Cheerz
A Big Thank You to Spinner and Tmod. I used the repackaged FK version of the driver for the Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev 2 found on this notice board (http://www.short-media.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14116) it fixed all the issues with using SATA RAID and Windows XP hanging whilxt booting. It also fixed Ghost32 problems withing Windoes PE.
Never thought I would have to download a BIOS from a notice board and use on my main PC.
Thanks again Guys....
p.s. Last Gigabyte Motherboard I buy....
I don't have any experience with NCQ drives so I couldn't tell you much except that I heard they transfer faster.
Glad to be of help.
sounds like matrix.
im pleased.
I have found the BIOS version 4.2.50 (r4250.bin) for my PCI card controller SATA 3112 RAID.
Actually, my BIOS is in the version 4.2.47.
I have the software "UpdBIOS" and "UpdFlash" too.
Unfortunately, this operation didn't function :
updflash r4250.bin -a -d -v -ID3112
Otherwise, i don't understand the syntax of "updbios" : updbios input_file output_file R
What must i type ? updbios r4250.bin xxxx R
Regards
My Motherboard is an EPOX 8K3A+ (no SATA controller)
Copy the 'updflash' to a floppy disk as well as the 'r4250' bin file.
You then need to boot into DOS using a floppy boot disk. You can download one from the SM downloads section if necessary.
Once in DOS type 'a:' to access the floppy drive. (If you're not already there)
Then type 'updflash r4250.bin'
That should work. Your original command line should also have worked, but typically you would only use the IDxxxx line if you had more than one PCI card and didn't want to be prompted as to which one you wanted flashing. The other parameters were also only optional, for the sake of simplicity leave them out for now.
Try the above again, and then post back. The 'updbios' utility is for creating your own custom BIOS files... I think.
Cheers