New Sata WD750GB freezes POST on Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Rev.1

rburksrburks
edited January 2008 in Hardware
Hi. Well the title really says most of it. I just purchased a Western Digital 750GB SATA drive from NewEgg and put it in my system. Now, I've been running XP on a 250GB Sata IBM/Hitachi drive for a couple of years now with no problems (it's on SATA0). I've got the BIOS settings to boot from SCSI and use the SATA controller as BASE. The Hitachi drive is 150mb/sec and the new WD drive is 300mb/sec, but my Gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 Rev.1 motherboard controller only supports the 150mb/sec spec.
The problem is this: When I attached the new WD drive to SATA1 and turned on the computer, the POST got as far as the SATA controller finding BOTH drives, but it halts there. On the left side of the screen are the names of both detected drives, and on the right side of the screen are where the drive size is displayed. Only my first SATA drive (the Hitachi) has a size displayed. There is a blinking vertical line cursor sitting where the size of the WD drive would be displayed. It just sits there and blinks forever.
Thinking the problem was due to the faster transfer speed of the WD drive, I placed a jumper on the 5-6 pins of the drive that the label indicate forces the 150 speed spec. This had no effect. Now after some searching online I am starting to believe my onboard controller has an incompatible BIOS for this drive. My motherboard BIOS is currently the latest (F11) for this board.
I have no other computers with SATA connections to test the drive to see if it is bad, so I can't just RMA it back to NewEgg without knowing first. I may end up purchasing a PCI card to run it on until I can rebuild my PC some day.

Any ideas would really be appreciated :smiles:

Comments

  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited January 2008
    Drives can be ordered doa man.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited January 2008
    Pull your first drive and run this drive on SATA0 just by itself to see if it gets past that point.
  • EssoEsso Stockholm, Sweden
    edited January 2008
    The possible problem here is that the new HDD is configured for SATA-2 speed, while the interface only supports SATA-1.

    When I purchased my Hitachi 320GB SATA-2 HDD's, they where configured for SATA-2 speed.
    They should had been configured for SATA-1 speed, to begin with.

    (My DFI motherboard supports SATA-2 speed so I had no problem.)

    The only way to fix this, is to configure the HDD to run in SATA-1 speed.
    If that is possible !

    For that you will need an SATA-2 interface.

    See WD - Service and Support.
  • rburksrburks
    edited January 2008
    kryyst -- yeah I thought of that today when I got home. Same thing, it saw the drive but never got past that.

    Esso -- the drive label shows how to force the drive into SATA-1 speed, and I double-checked it on WD's support site. I had to put a jumper on the drive but it didn't change anything....still hangs.

    I'm going to give it to a friend tomorrow so he can try it on his machine. He's got a newer motherboard that should have no problem with it. At least I can find out if it's the drive. I don't have any problem with getting a dead drive -- it happens, and I can RMA it easily if that's the case. Just finding out is the problem.

    Thanks for the ideas so far and if anyone comes up with something we haven't thought about by all means throw it up here. I'll post something when I find out if the drive is ok.
  • rburksrburks
    edited January 2008
    Okay here's the deal. My friend tried this drive in his Biostar TForce 6100 system and had no problems. Therefore I need to either A: rebuild my current system, B: use a PCI SATA card, and C: use a SATA to IDE adapter. OR I can try a modified motherboard BIOS. I guess it's time to call on Spinner for help.

    Are you out there Spinner? Sounds like I'm gonna need a modified motherboard BIOS (F11) for Gigabyte's GA-7N400 Pro2 rev. 1 along merged with the newest Silicon Image SATA bios for the 3112 onboard chip. Will I need new drivers for this also?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Spinner is under extended leave.

    Looks like you're going to have to go with PCI SATA controller card.
  • rburksrburks
    edited January 2008
    I agree Thrax. Doing some searching around here I have found that Spinner has been very busy elsewhere and didn't have much hope of getting a reply. I guess I'll close out this thread now. Thanks to all the replies! Maybe I can help someone on here sometime.

    Peace
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