Yet another SATA problem

VanityVanity
edited July 2005 in Hardware
Hey guys!

Please allow me to ask a noob question, I'm really lost here.

My girlfriend just bought me Plextor DVD-writer this X-mas, but when I wanted to hook it up, I noticed it was a SATA drive, wich I have not used before. Since it was bought online, and the IDE-version was more expensive, I bought a SATA controller card instead of returning the drive.

This is where the problem started, I just can't make that card work. After many hours of trying and researching, I figure that maybe my mobo isnt compatible with the SATA card at all.

When I reboot after connecting the drive to the card, WinXP hangs, saying that there are no bootable drive.

I use a Asus P4B266 mobo, and the card is a Silicon Image 3112. I tried several drivers, but with the same result.

The card has a raid function, but I just wanna use the SATA controller.

I hope some of you guys can help me with an answer. Is it impossible to make the card run on my mobo? If not, what am I doing wrong?

Regards
Vanity
«1

Comments

  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2005
    In BIOS try finding and disabling "Boot from other device" and see if that helps, also make certain that your boot order remains intact as well.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited January 2005
    It looks like your system is trying to boot from your Silicon Image card, and there is no bootable devices present on that controller. You may want to take a look in your bios settings. Look for boot order or boot priority. If there is something listed as 'boot from other' or 'SCSI' remove it, or set it last on the list. Check your owners manual for specific steps. With older motherboards, SCSI on the boot order list does mean a PCI controller card (SCSI, SATA, IDE or otherwise).

    You can test this theory by inserting a bootable CD into your DVD drive, and see if it starts up. Try your windows XP installation disc etc. I do not think that this is a driver issue. Commonly with SATA drivers issues, you'll experience blue screen failures in windows, noting some kind of 'mass controller' issue.

    Give that a shot, and let us know if it helps..

    EDIT: madmat beat me to it :) I started writing just a little too late..
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited January 2005
    I agree with lemon but one other thing to try is moving it to another pci slot. Feel free to move it a couple times even as many share irq's and address space with other devices and sometimes they won't even see the cards bios as its getting tromped on by another device.

    But again... I think lemons advice is the place to start. If your SURE its set right then try plan B.

    Tex
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    Thx for the answers!

    As for the boot sequence, I just checked it again, this is what it looks like:
    1. Removeable drive [Legacy Floppy]
    2. IDE Hard Drive [(My IDE Harddisk)]
    3. Atapi CD-Rom [(My IDE CD-Drive)]
    4. Other Boot Device [Disabled]

    Additionally, I can say that when I boot up, theres a boot-message stating that the Silicon Image SATARAID Bios is booting (Or something similar).

    I also forgot to say, that I only cant boot if the DVD-drive is connected to the SATA card. When I pull the plug, I boot fine, but ofc this doesnt help me a whole lot.

    I already tried to move the card between 2 different slots, the last 2. I encountered a strange problem earlier tho, I have a USB card also, that failed to work when I put in the SATA card. I simply solved this by moving my mouse to the onboard USB. Could this cause the error?

    Thx again for the answers, pls post more questions if needed ;)

    Best regards
    Vanity
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    Anyone? :sad2:
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    What SATA PCI Card did you buy?

    Manufacturer and Model please.
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    As stated in the first post, the PCI card is a Silicon Image, model 3112.
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    Vanity wrote:
    As stated in the first post, the PCI card is a Silicon Image, model 3112.

    Did you by any chance flash the PCI bios with the Non-Raid bios flash?

    What bios revision is the card currently flashed with?
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    Tmod wrote:
    Did you by any chance flash the PCI bios with the Non-Raid bios flash?

    What bios revision is the card currently flashed with?

    I did not flash the PCI bios at all, am I supposed to do that?

    I'm not sure what is the standard bios revision is, how do I check that?
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    When you boot the system and get to the Silicon Image screen at the very top it will have a number. That is your bios revision number.

    Silicon Image makes two different bios's for the Add-in cards, Not sure if the RAID bios does it all or the IDE Bios will accomplish what you want.

    What channel do you have the Drive on?
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    The Silicon bios is version: 4.2.47

    The drive is not attatched to the card atm, but I have tried both channels with same result.
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    Are the drivers that you are using for Raid or IDE?
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    The drivers that I use are for raid. There are 2 drivers on the driver-cd, one for raid, and one without raid. I belive I should use the one without raid, but windows wont install, when i force it to, the card is not working.

    The driver installed now is the windows automatic installed one.
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    The reason might be because the bios is for Raid and you are trying to install a driver for IDE.
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    Maybe, but when I force it to install the driver without raid, the control panel says that the card is "Not working correctly"
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    Chances are it wouldn't being that the bios is a Raid bios.

    Flash the card to the non-raid bios and install the non-raid driver and see what happens.
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    I managed to flash the card.

    On startup it now says: "SATAlink bios 4.2.50". Windows is accepting the non-raid driver now. But it still cant boot from my harddisk when the DVD is connected. Same problem it seems.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited January 2005
    Not 100% sure where i heard this, but i remeber something about optical SATA devices not being recognized by certain SATA controllers.

    I think this is where your problem lies...if i remeber correctly only a newer intel chipset (865,875,915,925,925xe) with integrated south-bridge SATA supports optical SATA devices. Which, i think, is why we haven't seen a massive proliferation of optical SATA devices.

    Check all of the fine print in the manual and on the box that came with the plextor burner....might be something about SATA controller support.
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    Well I am running out of ideas here.

    Is there a CD/DVD in the player by chance when you try booting?

    I know you have rechecked the boot order and the SATA card is not in it.

    What model of Plextor is this?

    Tmod

    ryko: Silicon Image states that any CD/DVD that is SATA based will work ok with their PCI Add-in card.
  • rykoryko new york
    edited January 2005
    Tmod wrote:
    ...ryko: Silicon Image states that any CD/DVD that is SATA based will work ok with their PCI Add-in card.

    Ahhh yes, but what does plextor have to say.....i swear i saw a review of a plextor burner that was only supported on newer intel chipsets. Could be totally wrong though. :scratch:
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    ryko,

    You may have a very good point there.

    Since SATA is fairly new who knows what works and what doesn't.

    Ok I checked it out and the Plextor will work with the following card.

    SYBA SD-SATA3112-150R - Sil 3112 RAID OK

    The is the same chipset that the Silicon Image has just a cheaper brand.

    So it should work.
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    The burner is a Plextor PX-712SA

    There are no cd/dvd in the drive when I try to startup.
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited January 2005
    Vanity wrote:
    The burner is a Plextor PX-712SA

    There are no cd/dvd in the drive when I try to startup.
    If you can see the SI3112 controller BIOS dialogue flash up upon POST (you've said you can, because you quoted the BIOS version number to us), you'll need to use the RAID drivers in Windows. I know you said you were using the RAID drivers originally, but try the below updated ones which are the latest version of the SI3112 RAID drivers, v1.0.0.51.

    http://www.short-media.com/download.php?d=326

    Try changing the jumper configuration on the optical drive also, e.g change it from Cable Select to Master, or vice versa.

    Try the above drivers and have a mess with the jumper config on the drive and then post back.

    Cheers
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    So I need to re-flash the bios with the raid version, and install the raid drivers again?
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    By the way, there are no jumpers on the optical drive at all.

    Update Back to raid bios and raid drivers. Still no result. Would a bios flash on the MB by any chance change the situation?

    Another update: I flashed my MB (Asus P4B266) bios with latest version. Still no result. Just wanted to eleminate the option. ;D
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited January 2005
    Vanity wrote:
    By the way, there are no jumpers on the optical drive at all.

    Update Back to raid bios and raid drivers. Still no result. Would a bios flash on the MB by any chance change the situation?

    Another update: I flashed my MB (Asus P4B266) bios with latest version. Still no result. Just wanted to eleminate the option. ;D
    I don't know what you're flashing mate to your controller card, but there should be only one BIOS type for your card. Could you ellaborate for me exactly what your flashing each time and where you're obtaining the BIOS's to do so? Thanks. I'm not quite following what you're doing with regard to this.

    Nevertheless, it would seem to me that the problem is increasingly more likely to be a basic incompability with the optical drive and the SATA controller. My advise would be to try and swap it for a PATA one. If I think of something else you can try I'll post back.

    Let us know how you get on mate.
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    Spinner wrote:
    I don't know what you're flashing mate to your controller card, but there should be only one BIOS type for your card.

    Spinner,

    There are two different bios's for the Add-in cards there is one for RAID and one for NON RAID.

    Tmod
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited January 2005
    Tmod wrote:
    Spinner,

    There are two different bios's for the Add-in cards there is one for RAID and one for NON RAID.

    Tmod
    Oh ;D. Thanks for setting me straight mate :thumbsup:. Have you got a download link you could throw my way? I don't recall seeing anything like that on the SI site.

    Taking that into consideration then Vanity, like Tmod originally stated, trying the non-RAID version of the BIOS would be the thing to do, but as you've already tried that to no success, my previous statement still stands about compatibility.

    The point is (lessons from Tmod aside ;) ), the optical drive should show up as detected and listed when the SI 3112 controller dialogue flashes up upon post (when it shows you the BIOS revision you've got e.g 4.2.50).

    Forgive me if you've mentioned this already, but if the optical drive doesn't show up on that list, then it isn't being detected by the controller card itself, which makes using the right driver irrelvant and not the problem. So if the optical drive doesn't show up upon post with either of the different controller BIOS versions, then the only conclusion I can come to is that your particular optical drive isn't happy working with that SATA controller type. Is it detected upon post under the SATA controller dialogue?

    Nevertheless, try a different SATA cable as a last resort to make sure it's not something simple like that.
  • TmodTmod
    edited January 2005
    Spinner wrote:
    Oh ;D. Thanks for setting me straight mate :thumbsup:. Have you got a download link you could throw my way? I don't recall seeing anything like that on the SI site.


    Well everytime I link it changes so just go to Silicon Images site and under support go to the resource center and then click on CRC at the bottom then downloads and then bios then 3112A, You should now have two options. Just pick the bios link.

    Just read the top and you will see they actually have three different bios's included with the file. A Raid for Add-in, A IDE for Add-in , and the OEM for the motherboards.

    Tmod
  • VanityVanity
    edited January 2005
    Spinner wrote:
    The point is (lessons from Tmod aside ;) ), the optical drive should show up as detected and listed when the SI 3112 controller dialogue flashes up upon post (when it shows you the BIOS revision you've got e.g 4.2.50).

    Forgive me if you've mentioned this already, but if the optical drive doesn't show up on that list, then it isn't being detected by the controller card itself, which makes using the right driver irrelvant and not the problem. So if the optical drive doesn't show up upon post with either of the different controller BIOS versions, then the only conclusion I can come to is that your particular optical drive isn't happy working with that SATA controller type. Is it detected upon post under the SATA controller dialogue?

    Nevertheless, try a different SATA cable as a last resort to make sure it's not something simple like that.

    Yes, when I plug in the SATA cable from the drive to the card, the optical drive shows up on start up, it is surely detected and recognized. But I cant boot from any drive when it is connected, HDDs, Optical drives, floppy, or even the SATA optical drive itself.

    I will give the cable a shot when I log off, I doubt it will help, but I will post if it does.

    Thank you guys for hanging in there, and still posting about my problem!

    Cheers
    Vanity
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