Sata Controller settings in BIOS; Issue Loading Bios

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

Hello,

I am currently having a couple small issues with my current build. I am upgrading to a new motherboard and processor when it arrives this week, but I am not sure if I will run into the same issues with my new board, as they are both from Gygabyte. I want to make sure I have the bios setup correctly.

My current board is a Gygabyte 880GA-UD34 found here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128444

It is an older board as I bought it in 2010 I believe. Here are a couple of issues I am having, and I am wondering if it has anything to do with how I have the bios setup.

Sometimes, more often then not, I will power on the PC and tap the delete key to enter the BIOS. It will show the MB splash screen where I start tapping delete, then show a list of my hard drives. Sometimes after the hard drive list appears, it will go into the BIOS without any issues. Other times, it shows the hard drive list and stays there and won't go into BIOS or boot into windows and I have to restart and try again. If I don't tap delete, it boots into windows without issue.

I will note, that I used the Gygabyte software a while back to update to the latest firmware. So I am running the latest on the board.

I currently run Windows 7 64bit. I have a full tower - the Cooler Master Haf X. I have an Intel SSD 250 gig drive as my boot drive, and I have 5 other standard hard drives for mass storage (I do a lot of HD editing).

When I installed the SSD, I went into the Bios. My bios is a simple blue screen with CMOS Setup Utility - CopyRight 1984 - 2011 Award Software at the top - if this helps with anything as far as explaining the bios type.). Under "Integrated Peripherals" is where I changed some settings. Here is what is on my screen:

OnChip Sata Controller (Enabled)
OnChip SATA Type is set to AHCI (I believe I changed this from the original setting).
Then there is a "OnChip Sata Port 4/5 Type" under that and the options are As Sata Type, or IDE. I had it set as IDE.

I have the boot order list as boot from hard drive first, and with all my mass hard drives plugged in and running, I have had no issues with this setup for a good solid 2 years... until tonight.

I did a complete PC tear down. I unplugged every cable, tore the case apart, cleaned all the fans, ect. Upon putting it back together, I started out plugging just the SSD drive in to do a windows boot to make sure everything was in working order. I then powered down and added 1 of the mass storage drives. When I booted up, it was there and everything was working fine. I then shut down, added the other 4 drives, and when I went to boot up, I got this in my screen:

"Disc read error. Ctrl Alt Delet to reboot"

I oushed them to do a reboot, and had to rebooted a couple times because the message kept coming back. I tried going into the bios on a couple of the restarts and it would freeze after showing me what drives where connected and not load the bios. I then powered down and un plugged all the drives except the SSD and it booted right up into windows. It then took another couple reboots to properly get into the bios, however.

I am not sure what is causing this, nor do I understand the difference between IDE mode and AHCI mode, if that even has anything to do with it. I was just told ACHI had to be enabled to run the SSD properly with trim control.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? And is there something different I need to do with my new board setup when it comes? Thanks in advance for any replies.

jbseven · Sep 23, 2015

I wonder if there is a problem with one of your drives, causing your bios to lock up while trying to detect the drive. You will have to do a full scan of each hard disk like so:

Start> cmd> chkdsk x: /f /r /x
Do this for all hard drives (d: e: etc) except ssd for which you would do:
chkdsk c: /f /x
restart if necessary.

Depending on the size of the hard drives it would likely take a whole day to do them all.

Tradesman1 · Sep 23, 2015

When you go into the BIOS what shows for the date, might have a dead CMOS battery

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

No, the date is fine. I actually checked that.

What would cause a disc read error where it won't boot windows? That happened after I connected all my other drives, but booted into windows just fine after I disconnected the other drives...

jbseven · Sep 23, 2015

A bad sector or file system error are a couple of reasons. Do you hear any unusual clicking or buzzing sound from any of the hard drives? Try plugging in one hard disk at a time until windows fails to boot to determine the culprit(s). That'll save you some time with chkdsk.

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

I started to do that. As stated in my original post, I started with the SSD by itself. I then added the first mass storage drive without any issues. It was after that I installed the other drives that caused the issue. I'll try it one at a time and see what happens.

In the bios settings, should I be using ACHI on both Sata settings?

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

Ok, so I think I discovered something here...

I shut down the pc for a bit and walked away from the issue for a bit. I decided after reading a couple of these replies to go at it one more time. I attempted to go into the bios with the SSD and 3 other mass stoarge drives connected. It wouldn't go into the bios. I am using a USB keyboard, so I thought maybe the port it was plugged into was an issue. I moved the keyboard USB plug from the front panel to the back, nothing changed.

I then disconnected all the hard drives except the SSD, and I was able to go into the Bios right away. Idk if the drives are a direct result to it being held up, as I have had them all connected before without having issues getting into the Bios. But as soon as I disconnected them, I got into the bios first try.

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

Forget my last reply.... the SSD is all that is installed, and the bios didn't load after a restart I just did.

jbseven · Sep 23, 2015

It could be any number of problems. We need to rule them out one at a time. A first step would be to run a basic chkdsk on the drives.

Beyond that, it could be an issue with drive head (which is why I asked if you hear any clicking).

It could be an issue with insufficient power being supplied to the hard drive. Have you got 4 hard drives connected on one line?

leave AHCI enabled as long as the problem did not start at the moment you switched to AHCI mode. If you change it now, I believe you will have to reinstall windows so this is the last resort.

Disconnect ALL USB cables apart from the keyboard and mouse while troubleshooting.

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

I installed windows with ACHI enabled, so that is all good to go.

I have a 850 watt power supply, and had all the drives hooked up without issues before. So unless the PSU is failing, I can't see that being an issue?

I have no successfully booted windows with the SSD drive while 2 other HDD drives are connected. Anytime I connected a 3rd drive, it gives me the disk read error. It isn't one specific drive doing it. I have 3 different drives here, and anytime I connected any of them, it goes to disc read error. But as soon as I run just the SSD and the first 2 HHDs, it boots fine.

jbseven · Sep 23, 2015

How many hard disks do you have connected to each psu sata line? How many sata lines are there on your psu?

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

I even tried putting the 3rd drive on a different SATA port, and it gives me the disc read error.

I have 2 swapable drive bays on the front of my case that I usually put two of the drives in. They are currently not hooked up. Would this play a roll in this? After I connected the drives successfully after a fresh windows install this past weekend, I changed a couple of the drive letters around. Would that do anything as far as what order the drives get installed in? I changed the drive letters in widdows disk managment.

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

My opwer supply is here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011

The sata cable is modulated. I have one sata power line connected to one of the PSU's outputs. That one cable has 4 sata power connectors on it, powering the 3 HHDs and the one SSD. I had this set up before, as well as 2 other hot swapable drive bays with 2 more HHDs in them with the hotswaps on a separate power line in a different sata power out on the psu.

jbseven · Sep 23, 2015

I have the wired version of that power supply. After a few years it would not power up any 4th drive on the same line. The solution would be to hook the remaining drives to a different line.

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

Correction, the two swapable bays are not Sata cable powered. They have a molex power cable.

I connected just the SSD and the 2 HHDs only again where it booted fine before, and again, it boots fine. So I have a SSD and 2 HHDs at 2tb each - WD Black drives. All three connected work fine.

If I add the 2 swapable drives, which are on a molex line in a different output port on the PSU, I get the boot error. If I add any of the other drives, I get the boot error.

liberty610 · Sep 23, 2015

If I leave all the drives but the three that are working un plugged, it boots into windows. After it booted into windows, I powered up the swapable drive bays and it detected the drives just fine. I played videos off of them and everything. I then restarted the pc, and it gave me the boot error.

jbseven · Sep 23, 2015

A spare PSU would be invaluable in this situation to confirm that the PSU is the culprit.

You could try some of the other currently unused lines (either sata or molex with adapters).

But personally I wouldn't like the idea of having my important hard drives hooked up to something that provides questionable volts.

liberty610 · Sep 24, 2015

No I agree, I don't like the idea either. I mean, I have everything backed up to other external drives and on a nas, but that's besides the point.

This is just eating at me because the psu is only a couple years old, and there have been extended periods of time that I didn't use this pc. I know that makes really no difference in the world of computers, but it erks me to think the psu is bad already, especially since it took me a year and a half to save up for my new upgrades

The thing I don't get is, there only seems to be an issue at initial boot up. If I connect the extra drives afterward Windows boots, everything seems to work fine. I'm not saying that doesn't mean there isn't an issue with the psu. I don't know much about trouble shooting causes, as this is the first time I've ran into issues since I built it in 2011.

As I started, I had the ACHI setup when I installed Windows 7, and I know if you have it set to ide and then change it after Windows, there are issues and a reinstall is needed.

Would this matter? I have 2 optical drives. One is an IDE drive that is a DVD burner, which was hooked up and was used to install Windows 7 this past weekend when I did a fresh install, and the other optical drive is a sata Blu Ray burner drive. The only thing that's different between the initial reinstall of Windows I did this past weekend and since I did last night's full tear down of the pc is, I removed that IDE optical drive from the equation because my new mother board I'm getting this week (hopefully today) is Sata only. So I won't be needing it. Would taking that away make any difference in this situation?

I ran the pc all week with all the drives hooked up, as well as having pcie cards installed for live streaming and video capture. No issues all week.

jbseven · Sep 24, 2015

As i said, its too soon to be certain it is the psu.

Hooking up all 5 devices to a spare psu would be the best way to confirm it. It doesn't have to be excessively high wattage as the pc wouldn't take that much power to boot into windows. Disconnect all fans, remove your discrete graphics and use your onboard graphics to furtherreduce the power draw.

If you don't have a spare psu then you can still try a different modular cable to rule out a faulty cable, or a different power port on the power supply. since there is a chance that one of the other lines are controlled by a different voltage regulator that isn't buggered.

You can get into windows with 3 drives at a time and run chkdsk as mentioned above on each of them in the off chance that it might fix your issue or at least detect some errors.

If you can get into bios, make sure smart is turned on and install a program like hd sentinel or crystal disk mark to read the smart info that tells you if there is a serious problem with one of your drives.

Lastly you can try SATA/IDE mode in bios, keeping in mind you will need to reinstall windows.

My psu got buggered after 2 years when i decided to clean the dust out of my case. And it took out one of my 3tb hard drives in the process. If I ever buy another psu, I'll go out of my way to get a Tier one.

liberty610 · Sep 24, 2015

Smart is activated. At least that what it says next to each drive. Like, when I boot it up with all the drives connected, it shows the splash screen, then it does a disc scan where it shows a list of all the drives and the model numbers with S.M.A.R.T. next to each one. That's why I'm having a hard time thinking it's a psu issue, because before the disc read error, it does all the drives.

After it shows the drives, it says 'loading operating system' like normal, but instead of seeing the Windows starting screen it says disc error.

There seems to be power to the drives, because it sees the drives before it goes into the did read error. And if I disconnect the drives so it does boot into Windows, I can then connect the drives after Windows boots and there are no issues. All the drives show up in 'My computer' like they are suppose to.

I'm at work right now, so I can't do anything else at the moment, but I will try more options when I get back to the pc.

liberty610 · Oct 2, 2015

It's been about a week. Just wanted to stop by and update this situation. I got a new motherboard/processor, and there is no issues with the new rig. There was something with the last motherboard setup... not sure what exactly, but there def. was not a power supply issue. I have all the drives hooked up, a bigger CPU cooler, and a way more power hungry graphics card. We're running solid for a straight week now

Thanks for the attempts to help though fellas!

Sata Controller settings in BIOS; Issue Loading Bios

Distinguished

Distinguished

Legenda in Aeternum

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Share this page