Soyo KT600 Dragon Plus, SATA problem

Chinksta

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Nov 21, 2008
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Hello everyone.

I have a problem with this motherboard I just received from this trade recently. It is a Soyo KT600 Dragon Plus. The original one. I got this board up and running. I've tried searching around for this on the board but there was nothing that related to this situation. The problem is that when I hook up a sata hd up to it, it won't detect it as being connected. Usually when I do this on another motherboard, it'll detect it a second after the post screen that shows all the ide drives first. So when I tried installing windows, I'll hit F6 and install the specific driver from a floppy drive then it'll tell me there is no hard drive hooked up on there and press F3 to quit.

So after restarting the computer, I get back to that screen where its detecting the sata drives. It'll say to press tab to do something with the hard drive. So I go into that screen right there. It gives me options but the problem with that is that it doesn't let me select anything in the screen.

The sata hard drive boots right up and is spinning the whole time. I tried another sata hard drive and still nothing happens with the sata detection screen. It keeps telling me that there is no device connected. I even tried new sata cords and still, nothing.

I remember from working on another computer, that you have to setup an array with the hard drive. But the computer doesn't let me. Don't know why. Everything on the motherboard works.

So let me reiterate my question; What could be wrong with my motherboard:

Could it be a bios problem?

And how could I fix this?

Thanks for looking at my post
 

4745454b

Titan
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Your Sanyo is powered by the Via KT600 northbridge, which rumor has it doesn't like SATAII drives. Some people on this forum claim that even if you put the jumper on so that the SATAII drive behaves like a SATA drive, it still won't work. I've never had the honor of trying to get a SATA drive working on a KT600/800 board, so I have no idea.

Try the jumper if you haven't already, but if that doesn't work, you might be SOL.
 

marcellis22

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Why don't you just buy a REAL motherboard, with a modern chipset? Let's keep beating our head against the wall, sooner or later, we expect it will feel better. $40 to $80 will alleviate that headache... A five+ year old motherboard in a trade, what did you swap, an old pair of used socks...the socks were the best part of that trade...
 

tcsenter

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Jun 18, 2008
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Actually, the VT8237 Southbridge is the problem, the Northbridge doesn't matter, but you are otherwise correct. Some drives do not have a jumper to set the drive for SATA 1.5 compatibility. Instead, the mode is changed using a software utility from the manufacturer. Hitachi and Samsung are usually going to be changed in firmware via software utility. Seagate and Western Digital usually have the jumper.

If Hitachi or Samsung drive, you'll probably need access to another computer with a non-VIA SATA controller in order to run the utility. Hitachi's utility doesn't support external third-party controllers such as Promise Technology. Samsung's utility has an oddity in that it presents the following choices for changing the SATA mode:

1. 1.5G -> 3.0G
2. 3.0G -> 1.5G

One would think #2 is correct for this situation, right? Nope. To change SATA 3.0 mode to SATA 1.5 mode, you need to select #1, which seems back-asswards to me.
 

Chinksta

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Nov 21, 2008
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All I traded it for it was a graphics card that I got for free from a friend. I don't really care about it. That why I did the trade in the first place. Well if it doesn't really have a true solution to work with it corrctly with newer drives, then I mind as well just use it with IDE's instead. sucks, but who can really cry about it. lol.

Well thanks everyone for your input/comments.
 

Chinksta

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I don't really know the jumper trick on there. It does have the jumpers on the hard drive. Are you able to explain it to me? I never really had this problem before so that is why I don't know how to do the jumper trick.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
There is no trick. Pull the drive from the case, and look at it. It should say somewhere on the drive where to put a jumper so it acts like a SATA drive instead of a SATAII drive. If it doesn't have the jumper, its either done through the firmware like tcs said, or it already is a SATA drive. Doing this might help, though its not a sure thing. I'd at least try before giving up.
 

tcsenter

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What is the make and model drive?

Hitachi and Samsung are usually going to be changed in firmware via software utility. Seagate and Western Digital usually have the jumper.

Almost all SATA drives have at least one jumper option, but its not necessarily going to be for changing the SATA mode. And you're looking for how to change the mode for compatibility with SATA 1.5, a.k.a. SATA 150, not SATA I or II.
 

Chinksta

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Its a Western Digital 160gb drive. it does have the jumpers on it but it doesn't say which pins to jump to get it to act like a sata instead of sataII. All it shows is how to activate PUIS(Power Up In Standby) and that is it. it has 3 other set of pins that I could hook up the jumper to though. Near the pins, on where the little circuit board is, its showing something like PW, OPT1, and FW. Not sure which one to hook up. I'll probably give it a try when I wake up though.