SATA Randomness... Need help...

[V4NT0M]

Hi, having some confusing problems with a system I just built based on an ECS KV2 Lite... System runs fine, everything pukka, however I'm adding another 320gb drive to the PC and it doesnt want to co-operate. Once I've connected the SATA cable to the PC it will not post properly and freezes on the ECS logo.

I've tried this drive in both SATA connectors and even if i unplug the current drive and plug in the new one it still wont boot past the logo screen. So basically no matter how I connect it (whether the power is connected or not) the PC wont post properly. FYI the drive is fine, boots and accesses fine with my PC.

The drive is a Hitachi Deskstar 320GB

Thanks for any help

 

[rpstewart]

If it's a T7K500 drive then this might get interesting. According to the ECS website the board only supports SATA at 150Mb/s whereas the T7K500 comes from the factory expecting to be able to run at 300Mb/s. Now if the SATA controller is able to auto negotiate the speed then this isn't an issue but if the controller can't negotiate you can end up with exactly the symptoms you're seeing.

The trick is to force the drive to run at 150Mb/s. For all manufacturers other than Hitachi this is just a case of setting a jumper on the drive but Hitachi in their infinite wisdom decided to make it a firmware setting on the drive. It can easily be changed with the Drive Feature Tool software but there's a minor flaw in that plan - if the drive isn't recognised by the system or the system fails to boot you can't run the DF against it. Therefore your best bet could be to find another machine that you can use to set the HDD to 150Mb/s mode.

 

[V4NT0M]

Thanks for the informative reply... I do have access to another machine, so I'll give this tool a try, I did read the SATA II FAQ above which mentioned the program, but didnt think it would cause this kind of problem. I'm also extremely surprised that my 3 year old Abit mobo can run it fine but this new mobo has problems =/

And I just put both PCs back together expecting a reply to take a few hours lol

*gets out screwdriver*

 

[V4NT0M]

Bah, got the tool and wrote it to disk, but it doesnt want to work Gets stuck at "Starting PC-DOS".