SATA AHCI - windows won't see it

[ZozZoz]

Ok, I'm pretty desperate right now.
WD3200KS and ASUS P5B just don't wanna be friends.

It worked for a while configured as IDE, then I read about SATA AHCI mode and decided to enable it. Did my homework. Got a floppy ready with the latest Intel driver for ICH8 SATA, set to AHCI in the BIOS. REboot, start installation, press F6, bla bla bla, load the driver ... and... windows says I have no drives installed.

Tried the J-micron controller (same thing - floppy driver....etc.) Windows saw it. Install copied files on to the HDD, reboot - Windows can't find hal.dll. Damn.

Went back to ICH8, tried each of the sata ports available. No luck.
tried a different floppy and a previous version of Intel driver - no result.

HAs anyone encountered this problem?
Help me solve this and I'll mail you a bottle of genuine Russian vodka. Seriously.

 

[Anoobis]

Reset the BIOS CMOS (follow the procedure in your manual). Apparently it worked once before at stock settings, so it should work again. I'm not sure what you meant by "It worked for a while configured as IDE" as you're talking about a SATA drive. Just plug it into SATA1 and you should be fine.

Re-install Windows again.

 

[RSavage]

I know what he's talking about. He's talking about his BIOS faking out the O/S by telling the O/S the SATA drives are ATA IDE drives. I think its kind of screwy too, but this is what is going on in some BIOS. My MB is the same way: I got three choices for my SATA drives: IDE, AHCI, or RAID.

Running in non-RAID mode you could pick AHCI or IDE. IDE is more compatible, AHCI is better because you then enable NCQ and everything is faster because there's less communications overhead on the serial link.

Back to the problem: what version of Windows, XP? x86? The BIOS reset suggestion is a good one. I'd also check and see if the drives are NCQ capable, because not all of them are. Many SATA, & some SATA-II drives don't support NCQ at all. Seemingly the biggest supporter is Seagate, so check the specificatons or FAQ or whatever for your drive and verify. Also, it seems the more recent O/S have better support than the older. XP being 5 years old now it is starting to get long in the tooth. I tried just enabling AHCI with XP Pro x64 and would blue-screen. I load Vista and its happy as a clam with AHCI and just runs right along.

The O/S not seeing the HAL could be more difficult to track down because there could be a fundamental hardware problem, or the O/S (including HAL) could have been corrupted during install because it was using that driver loaded during F6, and perhaps that whole combination of driver & HW is buggy. I have had this happen to me in the past where I've loaded an F6 driver (usually for RAID) and maybe the driver writer wasn't the best, so the driver is a little buggy and it corrupts some files, but not all, as its copying them from the CD during the initial installation.

So I'd try a fresh install. I'd check your drive's NCQ capability, and I'd try a newer O.S. Also do the normal stuff like check for updated drivers, loose cables, blah, blah, blah.

If anythiing I've said, or hinted at, or alluded to maybe suggesting works for you we'll talk about that Vodka.

It's just a guess,

 

[Bache]

Running in non-RAID mode you could pick AHCI or IDE. IDE is more compatible, AHCI is better because you then enable NCQ and everything is faster because there's less communications overhead on the serial link.

:?: When you say that AHCI is faster than IDE mode, how much faster?

:?: And would the SATA drive still be faster than a PATA drive or perform on par, ie. there is no benefit in having a SATA drive over a PATA drive if the SATA drive in in IDE mode?

 

[ZozZoz]

OK guys, after some search on ASUS suport forum I came out victorius.

Turns out, the driver provided is for Intel ICH8R, not ICH8.
Customers started expressing their anger from the start, but neither ASUS nor Intel addressed the issue.

Kudos to another poor fella who bought P5B for modifying the .inf and .oem files and posting their content on the forum. Shame on ASUS and their tech (gulp) support.

The difference in performance is noticeable. First of all, I benchmarked the two drives I have: WD3200KS, and WD2500JB. The former, showed off its NCQ abilities, and the resulting cpu utilization of 1.4% (as compared to 2500's 10,4!!!). Burst rate circa 127.1 mb/s, max. transfer rate slightly under 70 mb/s. I'm happy.

But even without that I can tell - installations go faster.

 

[xeonox]

where can i find this modifed driver that you talk about?