MSI-6167 Motherboard with Sil 3112 SATA Controller hangs o..

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Hi,

I have an old 6167 MSI Motherboard, and I have recently upgraded to add
the SiL 3112 SATA Controller PCI Card in order to use a 200GB SATA
Drive. I have the latest version of the BIOS (1.6) which is built on
Award 6.00.

I am trying to boot to my old IDE hard drive, with the SATA drive as an
extra drive. I have the IDE hard drive as primary master and my DVD/CD
drive as secondary master. I have the BIOS set to boot to floppy
first, then HDD-0, then nothing - all other options (including SCSI)
disabled.

The computer now hangs on boot, just after "Verifying DMI Pool Data";
if I set it up to boot from CD first & there's no valid CD in the CD
drive it reports:

Verifying DMI Pool Data...
Unable to boot from CD-ROM

and then hangs, which suggests to me it's not the actual act of
Verifying DMI Pool Data that's the issue, but working out how to boot.

If I unplug the SATA HDD from the PCI card (but leave the PCI card
installed) it boots fine into Windows XP. What's more, I can then hot
plug the SATA drive into the SATA Controller and use it absolutely
fine.

I've tried all sorts of different boot orders but it doesn't seem to
make any difference; each time I have to unplug the SATA drive from the
SATA card to boot up then hotplug it in when XP is up and running (the
controller card does support this!).

ANyone got any bright ideas? It's a bit of a pain...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Just tried it with the CD moved to Primary Slave, leaving the Secondary
IDE channel totally free; still no go.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Thanks; I tried giving it half an hour and it didn't manage to boot, so
I guess it's not going to! Haven't had a chance to try without any IDE
drives yet.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Rob Elliot <robert.elliot@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:1117987974.274589.21640@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> I have an old 6167 MSI Motherboard, and I have recently
> upgraded to add the SiL 3112 SATA Controller PCI Card
> in order to use a 200GB SATA Drive. I have the latest
> version of the BIOS (1.6) which is built on Award 6.00.

> I am trying to boot to my old IDE hard drive, with the SATA
> drive as an extra drive. I have the IDE hard drive as primary
> master and my DVD/CD drive as secondary master. I have
> the BIOS set to boot to floppy first, then HDD-0, then nothing
> - all other options (including SCSI) disabled.

> The computer now hangs on boot, just after "Verifying DMI Pool Data";

Thats pretty typical with any sort of boot failure
where the boot process doesnt progress very far.

> if I set it up to boot from CD first & there's
> no valid CD in the CD drive it reports:

> Verifying DMI Pool Data...
> Unable to boot from CD-ROM

> and then hangs, which suggests to me it's not the actual act of
> Verifying DMI Pool Data that's the issue, but working out how to boot.

Correct.

> If I unplug the SATA HDD from the PCI card (but leave
> the PCI card installed) it boots fine into Windows XP.

How long have you been waiting with the SATA HDD still plugged in ?
It can take a surprisingly long time to decide that the drive isnt bootable
when there is some fundamental problem with access to the drive.

> What's more, I can then hot plug the SATA drive
> into the SATA Controller and use it absolutely fine.

> I've tried all sorts of different boot orders but it doesn't seem
> to make any difference; each time I have to unplug the SATA
> drive from the SATA card to boot up then hotplug it in when
> XP is up and running (the controller card does support this!).

Yeah, one of the advantages of SATA.

> Just tried it with the CD moved to Primary Slave, leaving
> the Secondary IDE channel totally free; still no go.

> ANyone got any bright ideas? It's a bit of a pain...

What happens if you try with the SATA plugged
in and nothing on the IDE controllers for a test ?

Its clear that the problem is the boot process seeing the SATA.

Likely its some quirk of that elderly motherboard bios.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Rob Elliot wrote:
> Thanks; I tried giving it half an hour and it didn't manage to boot, so
> I guess it's not going to! Haven't had a chance to try without any IDE
> drives yet.

Tried both now, same behaviour in both instances. Thanks for the
suggestions. Anyone else ever had this experience?

 

[peter]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

> Hi,
>
> I have an old 6167 MSI Motherboard, and I have recently upgraded to add
> the SiL 3112 SATA Controller PCI Card in order to use a 200GB SATA
> Drive. I have the latest version of the BIOS (1.6) which is built on
> Award 6.00.
>
> I am trying to boot to my old IDE hard drive, with the SATA drive as an
> extra drive. I have the IDE hard drive as primary master and my DVD/CD
> drive as secondary master. I have the BIOS set to boot to floppy
> first, then HDD-0, then nothing - all other options (including SCSI)
> disabled.
>
> The computer now hangs on boot, just after "Verifying DMI Pool Data";
> if I set it up to boot from CD first & there's no valid CD in the CD
> drive it reports:
>
> Verifying DMI Pool Data...
> Unable to boot from CD-ROM
>
> and then hangs, which suggests to me it's not the actual act of
> Verifying DMI Pool Data that's the issue, but working out how to boot.
>
> If I unplug the SATA HDD from the PCI card (but leave the PCI card
> installed) it boots fine into Windows XP. What's more, I can then hot
> plug the SATA drive into the SATA Controller and use it absolutely
> fine.
>
> I've tried all sorts of different boot orders but it doesn't seem to
> make any difference; each time I have to unplug the SATA drive from the
> SATA card to boot up then hotplug it in when XP is up and running (the
> controller card does support this!).
>
> ANyone got any bright ideas? It's a bit of a pain...


What SiL 3112 SATA controller is that?
Does it have its own BIOS?
What happens if you put SCSI as your first boot device in
motherboard BIOS and have SATA drive attached?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

It's a Silicon Image SiI 3112 PCI SATA RAID Controller with 2 SATA
inputs. It has its own BIOS, 4.2.50, which as far as I can ascertain
is the latest version.

I'll give the SCSI option a go when I get home, but there's no boot set
up on the SATA disk so I guess it won't know what to do...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.msi-microstar,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Cheers for your help, guys. I managed to fix it by purchasing a new
BIOS from eSupport:
http://www.unicore.com/

They seem to manage to provide more up to date BIOSes for motherboards
that are no longer supported by the manufacturer. At any rate, my PC
now boots happily with their BIOS in there.