It's just something I read somewhere. By chance are you using a USB mouse? If so...try a PS/2 mouse. It may not be related but I read this with SATA PCI based raid cards. A TX4 PROMISE SATA RAID card always hung with a USB mouse attached to the system.
0
Straight_ManGeeky, in my own wayNaples, FLIcrontian
It's just something I read somewhere. By chance are you using a USB mouse? If so...try a PS/2 mouse. It may not be related but I read this with SATA PCI based raid cards. A TX4 PROMISE SATA RAID card always hung with a USB mouse attached to the system.
Some boards have three USB root hubs with one stacked against SATA. Most mouse drivers like to be always on. Mouse on, SATA not on, vice versa, with some resource combos used. So, also try mouse on a different root hub. Root hubs will show up as a pair of stacked USB sockets, in one riser mounted to mobo or on one card riser with ports on it. Typically, with three root hubs, at least one will have different IRQ assignment.
In this case, try to deconflict mouse and SATA if you are trying to boot from SATA especially-- with USB mouse, change root hub you are connecting mouse to to try and deconflict. Other things that use more dedicated IRQ virtuals, like printer and scanner, can go on that hub that is conflicted. Also, try not to connect USB mouse via an external hub, if you have legacy USB support oin to get mouse before Windows is up, BIOS will lag boot trying to probe the hub to find mouse-- WHILE the SATA drive is trying to talk....
Okay, before we start thinking about anything else, lets just make sure you're doing everything correctly on a basic level. Just to make sure we're all on the same page. So forgive me if you already know what I'm about to blurb.
Wouldn't you know that I've only gone and got a maxtor diamondplus 9 150sata 160GB hard drive which the bios seems totally incapable of detecting.
Firstly, you're talking about the SATA controller BIOS not being able to detect it right? Just to confirm, a SATA device plugged onto a Silicon Image controller won't show up in the motherboards primary BIOS setup, it will only be detected in the Silicon Image BIOS setup itself. This is a totally different controller BIOS setup to the standard one which controls the rest of the motherboards functions.
The Silicon Image controller BIOS will be probably the last thing you see before the computer searches for boot devices. E.g. In an ideal situation, just before the computer tries to start loading an operating system. Can you see the SI 3512 controller BIOS information pop-up when your computer is posting? If not, you may need to flip a jumper on your motherboard or something to enable it. Either way, when it's setup up correctly you should see the SI 3512 controller BIOS info flash up, and any drives plugged into it, ideally, should show up on the list.
When I follow all the instructions in the manual and try to install windows xp oem that only goes on for a little while before it tells me no hard drive is detected.
Secondly, are you pressing 'F6' at the very beginning of the Windows XP setup? You need to do this in order to instruct the setup program that the disk you want to install onto is plugged into, what is referred to as, a third party hard disk controller. It will then later on in the installation, before it comes to choosing which drive to install onto, prompt you to insert a relevant driver disk so it can start detecting drives plugged into the third party controller you previously told it you had (by pressing 'F6'). In your case, that will be for the Silicon Image 3512 SATA controller. So make sure you're doing that when trying to install Windows XP.
I apologise if the above suggestions and information is stuff you already know, but I have to make sure you're performing all the basic tasks necessary in order to get your hard drive working. Let me know you've put into practice all of the above, and that you've followed everything I've said, and then we can start having a proper think. That is presuming you're still having trouble getting your hard drive to detect. Also, the USB suggestion is definately something you should try.
Thanks for the quick replies, first off I'm not using a usb mouse as I suspected that might overcomplicate things but I do have two extra usb connections which I've connected to the front of the case, when I get a chance in four hours time I'll disconnect them and give it another bash.
What you're telling me Spinner is something I hadn't suspected as I was sure the motherboard bios would show up the sata drive somewhere, but from what you're saying that's not the case. Yes, I have been getting the controller bios sil3512 information popup and when I've tried booting with the sata raid option enabled in the m\b bios (even though I only have one drive) I do get the option to press F4 to set up the raid I want, I try that and it just tells me it can't detect any drive and it makes me wonder can it not detect the one drive I have or is it letting me know I need two for raid.Either way, I have never seen any mention of the diamondplus drive I have connected.
In the meantime I have also tried carrying on regardless on the offchance it might detect it further down the line, to that end I have pressed F6 (on numerous occasions at this point) and loaded the drivers for sil3112 which are the ones that came with the m\b. I've scoured the net and not been able to find sil3512 drivers but from what I've read the sil3112 ones should be able to do the job, 'should' being the operative word.
Does all that help or have just muddied the waters a little more???
Thanks for the quick replies, first off I'm not using a usb mouse as I suspected that might overcomplicate things but I do have two extra usb connections which I've connected to the front of the case, when I get a chance in four hours time I'll disconnect them and give it another bash.
What you're telling me Spinner is something I hadn't suspected as I was sure the motherboard bios would show up the sata drive somewhere, but from what you're saying that's not the case. Yes, I have been getting the controller bios sil3512 information popup and when I've tried booting with the sata raid option enabled in the m\b bios (even though I only have one drive) I do get the option to press F4 to set up the raid I want, I try that and it just tells me it can't detect any drive and it makes me wonder can it not detect the one drive I have or is it letting me know I need two for raid.Either way, I have never seen any mention of the diamondplus drive I have connected.
In the meantime I have also tried carrying on regardless on the offchance it might detect it further down the line, to that end I have pressed F6 (on numerous occasions at this point) and loaded the drivers for sil3112 which are the ones that came with the m\b. I've scoured the net and not been able to find sil3512 drivers but from what I've read the sil3112 ones should be able to do the job, 'should' being the operative word.
Does all that help or have just muddied the waters a little more???
The drivers for the 3512 controller and the 3112 controller are the same. So you're using the right drivers. To make sure you could download the latest from the SM-Downloads section (v1.0.0.47) and try those.
Your controller is a RAID capable controller, which is why it's called the 3512 SATA RAID controller, that doesn't mean you need to have a RAID array (i.e. two or more disk) setup before it will work. You can run individual disks fine on that controller.
If I read what you've said correctly though, you're saying that your hard drive isn't showing up at all in the SATA controller BIOS? Correct? You shouldn't even have to enter the SATA controller setup to confirm this, as any hard drives detected will be listed upon POST when the controller information flashes up.
So if that is the case, and your hard drive isn't showing up detected on your SATA controller, i.e. it doesn't list it, then the problem would be with the controller and the disk, not the drivers and Windows XP.
I suggest you try different jumper settings on your hard drive (even though it really shouldn't make any difference under normal circumstances) and double check the drives peripheral connectivity e.g. Swap out your SATA cable, try a different SATA port, etc etc. Also remove any un-essential devices from your system, e.g. PCI Modem etc for testing purposes.
I'm going away for a few days in a few hours so I'll leave you from this point in, in the capable hands of my colleagues. Hopefully by the time I get back (Monday or Tuesday) you'll have it sorted, if not, I'll have a think what else we can try for when I get back.
Try the things I've suggested, and then post back.
Thnx for that, I'll be going home in a couple of hours and will be tinkering around with what you have suggested. Hopefully just something simple I'm overlooking. If nothing else I'll get really familiarised with the guts of this pc I'm trying to breathe some life into!!!!
If time is money, I have wasted far too much plus hours of lost sleep trying to get the the Silicon Image SATA 3112 card to work without my PC constantly hanging.
I tried updating both motherboard and card bios, installed the latest drivers and trawled through all the forums I could find which was all a total waste of time.
I went out and threw $70 at a Western Digital SATA RAID controller and 10 minutes out of the box and everything is working perfectly and has been for days.
If time is money, I have wasted far too much plus hours of lost sleep trying to get the the Silicon Image SATA 3112 card to work without my PC constantly hanging.
I tried updating both motherboard and card bios, installed the latest drivers and trawled through all the forums I could find which was all a total waste of time.
I went out and threw $70 at a Western Digital SATA RAID controller and 10 minutes out of the box and everything is working perfectly and has been for days.
Well that's one way to get things working. What's that old phrase...
Just a final update in case someone else reads this thread and wonders what the resolution to my problem was. Having determined that the SATA hard drive itself was not at fault that left the finger of blame pointing at the motherboard. I returned it to the online supplier who tested it, found it to be faulty and sent me another one as a replacement. This one was up and running in five minutes using the preinstalled FB bios and the SATA drivers copied from the cd onto a floppy as requested by the manual. This is how it was all meant to be first time round. Good news: PC up and running. Bad news: it took two weeks of trying everything before finally realising it was the m\b, another week for it to be tested and found to be faulty.............C'est la vie!!
Just thought I would had my experience so far to the list of unhappy GigaByte
customers.
I bought a new setup, in parts including the GA-K8NNXP, hoping to set my
new computer up in raid (two seagate 80GB drives) but haven't even been
able to get any OS to install.
It detects my raid setup correctly, using the Silicon Image 1.0.0.50 drivers
latest available) but hangs every time when trying to copy the files over.
I have tried every imaginable bios setting /driver combo/OS version to no
avail. Many of my friends work in the IT industry and have had a go as well.
The motherboard bios is fully up to date as well.
I have now taken to rig back to the store I bought the parts at and if they
can't get it going then I'm going to ditch the motherboard and never touch
anything with GigaByte written on it. With the number of problems people
here have been having I'd be suprised if anyone would. From now on it's
Abit/Asus/Aopen for me, all brands which I've used before without a single
problem (I'm currently still running an Aopen AX6BC which I've had for 5
years without any drama).
Same issue here, 7n400-Pro2 Rev2.0 board with a Seagate 200GB SATA drive. Just hangs when copying files on/off etc. For the moment just back on my old HD.
Got latest mobo bios/SATA driver (tried old drivers too) and nothing changes.
I'm about to smash the drive. Tried disabling everything I could in bios to ensure no IRQ conflicts etc and no change.
Flashed your modified FB bios to my 7n400 Pro2 (rev2) and all seems well so far (only 5 mins of testing). I'm happy as long as this continues to work, but there isn't a chance you could add this SATA bios to the newer FF bios?
FINALLY an answer! Why on earth dont gigabye include this SATA bios with the official bios's? Argghhh
Anyway, Thanks heaps!
Cheers
Edit: Just for the record and anyone else I'm using the latest 1.1.0.52 drivers from the gigabyte website
Hi I,m also having a problem with the SIL3512 SATA raid controller, I recently bought a shuttle barebones (SN85G4v2) with a single sata drive Maxtor Diamondback 160gig.
The Sata controller bios shows the drive but everytime I attempt to install controllers for it during winxp set up it returns an unable to read setuptxt.oem file.
I finally resorted to temporarily installing an ata hard drive and installing windows on that. From there i managed to install the drivers and format and label the sata drive.
My only concern now is if i install windows across to the sata driver will i still need to install the raid controllers still in order to boot from the sata drive?
Sorry if I'm a bit vague on details but i can fill in any when i get home later.
I've setup 2 80 GB sata drives in mirror mode. This works fine and boots up fine.
My problem come when i want to connect my other 2 160 GB hDD SATA. From what i understand you can have either 2 drives in raid or 2 drives in basic mode sil3512 , so i bought a seperate PCI SATA controller. With my luck it was a sil3112. as soon as windows picks up the new raid card it gives the IRQ_LESS_OR EQUAL BSOD.
I've tried changing PCI IRQ 2 to something else but it always seems that the onboard raid controller want's to share the damn IRQ with my PCI add-on? I don't want to disable the APC of the mobo as this causes a lot of problems down the road.
I'm going to try and reinstall with the PCI card from scratch this weekend but any suggestions would help a lot.
I have the 'boots one time out of ten' problem with my PCI 4 Sata channel raid controller (sil 3114), bios ver 5.0.34. on the silicon image web site i can only find ide bios updates. can anyone point me in the direction of a SATA Bios update for this controller. im running xp which is installed on Raid 0 setup.
AMD 2000XP
Mobo = AsRock
768mb
2x80gig maxtor sata in raid 0
1x200gig seagate
Radeon 9800XT
Pci Wireless card.
Ethernet (on mobo)
Once into windows in seems to freeze (sometimes still have mouse cursor movemen sometimes not) at totally randome timescales, requires restart.
If no update is available any suggetions on what to try?
I have the GA-7N400 Pro2 Rev1 mobo with BIOS F11.
I follow the much-described procedure, putting the drivers in a floppy, setting the BIOS to SATA and BASE, and all.
I boot and press F6 when prompted, choose the right driver for the SATA controller for XP, proceed to install Windows, it finds and formats the drive, it copies the required files for the installation and it does its required reboot.
But here is the problem: As soon as it reboots, the drivers are lost, and it starts the whole process from the beginning. That is, re-installation of SATA controller drivers, re-formatting, re-copying the files, re-rebooting and so on...
What in the name of Mr. Bean am I doing wrong?
Comments
Some boards have three USB root hubs with one stacked against SATA. Most mouse drivers like to be always on. Mouse on, SATA not on, vice versa, with some resource combos used. So, also try mouse on a different root hub. Root hubs will show up as a pair of stacked USB sockets, in one riser mounted to mobo or on one card riser with ports on it. Typically, with three root hubs, at least one will have different IRQ assignment.
In this case, try to deconflict mouse and SATA if you are trying to boot from SATA especially-- with USB mouse, change root hub you are connecting mouse to to try and deconflict. Other things that use more dedicated IRQ virtuals, like printer and scanner, can go on that hub that is conflicted. Also, try not to connect USB mouse via an external hub, if you have legacy USB support oin to get mouse before Windows is up, BIOS will lag boot trying to probe the hub to find mouse-- WHILE the SATA drive is trying to talk....
John D.
Firstly, you're talking about the SATA controller BIOS not being able to detect it right? Just to confirm, a SATA device plugged onto a Silicon Image controller won't show up in the motherboards primary BIOS setup, it will only be detected in the Silicon Image BIOS setup itself. This is a totally different controller BIOS setup to the standard one which controls the rest of the motherboards functions.
The Silicon Image controller BIOS will be probably the last thing you see before the computer searches for boot devices. E.g. In an ideal situation, just before the computer tries to start loading an operating system. Can you see the SI 3512 controller BIOS information pop-up when your computer is posting? If not, you may need to flip a jumper on your motherboard or something to enable it. Either way, when it's setup up correctly you should see the SI 3512 controller BIOS info flash up, and any drives plugged into it, ideally, should show up on the list.
Secondly, are you pressing 'F6' at the very beginning of the Windows XP setup? You need to do this in order to instruct the setup program that the disk you want to install onto is plugged into, what is referred to as, a third party hard disk controller. It will then later on in the installation, before it comes to choosing which drive to install onto, prompt you to insert a relevant driver disk so it can start detecting drives plugged into the third party controller you previously told it you had (by pressing 'F6'). In your case, that will be for the Silicon Image 3512 SATA controller. So make sure you're doing that when trying to install Windows XP.
I apologise if the above suggestions and information is stuff you already know, but I have to make sure you're performing all the basic tasks necessary in order to get your hard drive working. Let me know you've put into practice all of the above, and that you've followed everything I've said, and then we can start having a proper think. That is presuming you're still having trouble getting your hard drive to detect. Also, the USB suggestion is definately something you should try.
So, let me know.
Thanks for your patience.
SPINNER
What you're telling me Spinner is something I hadn't suspected as I was sure the motherboard bios would show up the sata drive somewhere, but from what you're saying that's not the case. Yes, I have been getting the controller bios sil3512 information popup and when I've tried booting with the sata raid option enabled in the m\b bios (even though I only have one drive) I do get the option to press F4 to set up the raid I want, I try that and it just tells me it can't detect any drive and it makes me wonder can it not detect the one drive I have or is it letting me know I need two for raid.Either way, I have never seen any mention of the diamondplus drive I have connected.
In the meantime I have also tried carrying on regardless on the offchance it might detect it further down the line, to that end I have pressed F6 (on numerous occasions at this point) and loaded the drivers for sil3112 which are the ones that came with the m\b. I've scoured the net and not been able to find sil3512 drivers but from what I've read the sil3112 ones should be able to do the job, 'should' being the operative word.
Does all that help or have just muddied the waters a little more???
Your controller is a RAID capable controller, which is why it's called the 3512 SATA RAID controller, that doesn't mean you need to have a RAID array (i.e. two or more disk) setup before it will work. You can run individual disks fine on that controller.
If I read what you've said correctly though, you're saying that your hard drive isn't showing up at all in the SATA controller BIOS? Correct? You shouldn't even have to enter the SATA controller setup to confirm this, as any hard drives detected will be listed upon POST when the controller information flashes up.
So if that is the case, and your hard drive isn't showing up detected on your SATA controller, i.e. it doesn't list it, then the problem would be with the controller and the disk, not the drivers and Windows XP.
I suggest you try different jumper settings on your hard drive (even though it really shouldn't make any difference under normal circumstances) and double check the drives peripheral connectivity e.g. Swap out your SATA cable, try a different SATA port, etc etc. Also remove any un-essential devices from your system, e.g. PCI Modem etc for testing purposes.
I'm going away for a few days in a few hours so I'll leave you from this point in, in the capable hands of my colleagues. Hopefully by the time I get back (Monday or Tuesday) you'll have it sorted, if not, I'll have a think what else we can try for when I get back.
Try the things I've suggested, and then post back.
Cheers
I tried updating both motherboard and card bios, installed the latest drivers and trawled through all the forums I could find which was all a total waste of time.
I went out and threw $70 at a Western Digital SATA RAID controller and 10 minutes out of the box and everything is working perfectly and has been for days.
"You get what you pay for".
customers.
I bought a new setup, in parts including the GA-K8NNXP, hoping to set my
new computer up in raid (two seagate 80GB drives) but haven't even been
able to get any OS to install.
It detects my raid setup correctly, using the Silicon Image 1.0.0.50 drivers
latest available) but hangs every time when trying to copy the files over.
I have tried every imaginable bios setting /driver combo/OS version to no
avail. Many of my friends work in the IT industry and have had a go as well.
The motherboard bios is fully up to date as well.
I have now taken to rig back to the store I bought the parts at and if they
can't get it going then I'm going to ditch the motherboard and never touch
anything with GigaByte written on it. With the number of problems people
here have been having I'd be suprised if anyone would. From now on it's
Abit/Asus/Aopen for me, all brands which I've used before without a single
problem (I'm currently still running an Aopen AX6BC which I've had for 5
years without any drama).
Adam.
Same issue here, 7n400-Pro2 Rev2.0 board with a Seagate 200GB SATA drive. Just hangs when copying files on/off etc. For the moment just back on my old HD.
Got latest mobo bios/SATA driver (tried old drivers too) and nothing changes.
I'm about to smash the drive. Tried disabling everything I could in bios to ensure no IRQ conflicts etc and no change.
If anyone has any idea, please!!!
Cheers
Flashed your modified FB bios to my 7n400 Pro2 (rev2) and all seems well so far (only 5 mins of testing). I'm happy as long as this continues to work, but there isn't a chance you could add this SATA bios to the newer FF bios?
FINALLY an answer! Why on earth dont gigabye include this SATA bios with the official bios's? Argghhh
Anyway, Thanks heaps!
Cheers
Edit: Just for the record and anyone else I'm using the latest 1.1.0.52 drivers from the gigabyte website
The Sata controller bios shows the drive but everytime I attempt to install controllers for it during winxp set up it returns an unable to read setuptxt.oem file.
I finally resorted to temporarily installing an ata hard drive and installing windows on that. From there i managed to install the drivers and format and label the sata drive.
My only concern now is if i install windows across to the sata driver will i still need to install the raid controllers still in order to boot from the sata drive?
Sorry if I'm a bit vague on details but i can fill in any when i get home later.
I've got the same problem as the originator of this thread.....sort of
My mobo is the Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro s
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoar...A-K8N%20Pro.htm
I've setup 2 80 GB sata drives in mirror mode. This works fine and boots up fine.
My problem come when i want to connect my other 2 160 GB hDD SATA. From what i understand you can have either 2 drives in raid or 2 drives in basic mode sil3512 , so i bought a seperate PCI SATA controller. With my luck it was a sil3112. as soon as windows picks up the new raid card it gives the IRQ_LESS_OR EQUAL BSOD.
I've tried changing PCI IRQ 2 to something else but it always seems that the onboard raid controller want's to share the damn IRQ with my PCI add-on? I don't want to disable the APC of the mobo as this causes a lot of problems down the road.
I'm going to try and reinstall with the PCI card from scratch this weekend but any suggestions would help a lot.
I'm also going to upgrade all by bios's
AMD 2000XP
Mobo = AsRock
768mb
2x80gig maxtor sata in raid 0
1x200gig seagate
Radeon 9800XT
Pci Wireless card.
Ethernet (on mobo)
Once into windows in seems to freeze (sometimes still have mouse cursor movemen sometimes not) at totally randome timescales, requires restart.
If no update is available any suggetions on what to try?
I follow the much-described procedure, putting the drivers in a floppy, setting the BIOS to SATA and BASE, and all.
I boot and press F6 when prompted, choose the right driver for the SATA controller for XP, proceed to install Windows, it finds and formats the drive, it copies the required files for the installation and it does its required reboot.
But here is the problem: As soon as it reboots, the drivers are lost, and it starts the whole process from the beginning. That is, re-installation of SATA controller drivers, re-formatting, re-copying the files, re-rebooting and so on...
What in the name of Mr. Bean am I doing wrong?