Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Gigabyte > [Solved] GA-MA790GPT-UD3H New to SATA HDDs x-post

[Solved] GA-MA790GPT-UD3H New to SATA HDDs x-post

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Gigabyte - [Solved] GA-MA790GPT-UD3H New to SATA HDDs x-post

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Best answer from bilbat.

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slimbone   10-28-2009 at 05:03:53 AM

Not sure if I should x-post this or not. I posted this in the Hard Disks forum, but it might be more appropriate here? Not sure.

anyways....

I have some questions about working with SATA HDDs. I have a WD caviar black 750 gb HDD and a Gigabyte GA-MA790GPT-UD3H Mobo. All of this is brand new and I'm trying to partition my HDD so I can install windows 7 on it. I've never used SATA HDD's before.

In BIOS, the HDD is just being recognized on IDE channel 2 master. Shouldn't it be recognized as a SATA drive? If so, what do I need to do to enable SATA recognition?

When I boot into Acronis Disk Director Suite 10, to create the partition for windows 7 installation, the drive is not being recognized. The only drive that appears is my old back up IDE drive. How do I get the SATA drive to be recognized?

Thanks.

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Best answer from bilbat
the whole "IDE channel x master/slave" thing is just a red herring - doesn't matter to anything; the only thing that matters in the BIOS is that you have "SATA port native mode" enabled - turns on interrupt sharing, which makes better use of the on-die interrupt mechanism in CPUs available since, oh, around '98, and has been supported by all windoze after MilleniumEdition (which, I believe, at least eight people actually bought!); I have tested AHCI, and really see little difference - its only major advantage in my eyes is 'hot plug' for eSATAs; RAID, of course, makes a real difference, but is costly in hardware. And, by all means, turn off anything in the BIOS that you are not actually using - why waste interrupts, and make the 'queue deeper'? I do industrials, and sometimes need an old-fasioned actual, hard-interrupt serial port, as well as have an old beater of a parallel cabled plotter that will kind of creak along on an even older AutoCAD driver, but, for the main part, I leave the hardware disabled in the BIOS - when I have a need for 'em, zap 'em on in the BIOS at boot time, and windoze (all three versions) 'wakes up', sees the hardware, and plops the drivers back in, reliably, every time...
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slimbone   10-29-2009 at 03:57:37 AM

Wow, 27 views and no suggestions? That's rare.

This just dawned on me while I was re-reading the mobo manual: in BIOS do I have to change the OnChip SATA Type to RAID? Correct me if I'm wrong, and I hope I am so I can get this HDD recognized, but don't you only use RAID if you have more than 1 SATA HDD?

Reply to slimbone
wwarriner   10-29-2009 at 06:54:14 AM

I had the exact problem you did. In addition, I have an IDE HDD and a SATA HDD. The SATA is my old and new primary OS partition. I disabled the IDE controller in "Integrated Peripherals" in BIOS and it immediately booted much faster. I also had the HDD and DVD plugged into SATA ports 5 and 4 respectively (though I can't say for certain that matters).

With this setup Windows 7 64bit Home edition installed properly.

I have not checked yet, but I suspect that Gigabyte may have supplied a CS IDE cable, or that I had accidentally connected the Master drive to the Slave cable. This may have originally been the source of the problem, at least for me.

Bottom line___
Try disabling the IDE controller.

If this doesn't help...I am not sure what to suggest.

Edit: upon further examination setting the IDE drive to CS helped, and I was able to re-enable the IDE controller.


Message edited by wwarriner on 10-29-2009 at 07:03:59 AM
Reply to wwarriner
Silver Motherboards badge bilbat   10-30-2009 at 05:11:51 PM

(just so this becomes 'searchable' for IDE problems):

Here's an IDE cable:
M|----------|------|D
M1---------2-----3D
The 'M' end is the motherboard connector; the 'D' end goes to the drives.
There are two kinds of cables: 'standard' (on which the drives are jumpered to identify them), and 'cable select' (on which the cable itself sorts out the drive IDs).
If there are no labels (often, a large plastic or fabric 'pull-tab') saying 'master' and 'slave' on connectors 2 and 3, you have a 'standard' cable - jumper as follows:
it doesnt matter what connector goes to what; your primary (boot) HDD will need to be jumpered as 'master' [MSTR] on the drive; your secondary (or ODD) gets jumpered as 'slave' [SLV] on the drive.
If there are labels saying 'master' and 'slave' on connectors 2 and 3, you have a 'cable select' cable - jumper as follows:
Both drives get jumpered as [CSEL] on the drive; your primary (boot), or only, in the case of just one, goes on connector 3, which should be labeled 'master'; your secondary (or ODD) goes on connector 2, which should be labeled 'slave'; connector 1 goes to your MOBO IDE port...

Reply to bilbat
slimbone   10-30-2009 at 05:57:50 PM

wwarriner:

This is pretty much my exact setup, except I currently have my HDD and DVD burner plugged into SATA ports 0 and 1. I'll try disabling the IDE controller and see what happens.

bilbat:

Thanks for the info. I'm currently using an IDE cable which has only 2 connectors, 1 for the mobo and 1 for the drive. I have the jumper on the drive set to master (I think, I'll have to double check that). It's being recognized by Disk Director, so that's not a problem at the moment, other than I don't want to partition or install my OS on this drive.

Reply to slimbone
Silver Motherboards badge bilbat   10-31-2009 at 12:56:24 AM
Best answer

the whole "IDE channel x master/slave" thing is just a red herring - doesn't matter to anything; the only thing that matters in the BIOS is that you have "SATA port native mode" enabled - turns on interrupt sharing, which makes better use of the on-die interrupt mechanism in CPUs available since, oh, around '98, and has been supported by all windoze after MilleniumEdition (which, I believe, at least eight people actually bought!); I have tested AHCI, and really see little difference - its only major advantage in my eyes is 'hot plug' for eSATAs; RAID, of course, makes a real difference, but is costly in hardware. And, by all means, turn off anything in the BIOS that you are not actually using - why waste interrupts, and make the 'queue deeper'? I do industrials, and sometimes need an old-fasioned actual, hard-interrupt serial port, as well as have an old beater of a parallel cabled plotter that will kind of creak along on an even older AutoCAD driver, but, for the main part, I leave the hardware disabled in the BIOS - when I have a need for 'em, zap 'em on in the BIOS at boot time, and windoze (all three versions) 'wakes up', sees the hardware, and plops the drivers back in, reliably, every time...

Reply to bilbat
slimbone   11-03-2009 at 02:19:01 AM

There is no "SATA port native mode" option. The only options under OnChip SATA Type are: Native IDE, RAID, and AHCI. When I select RAID, the computer won't even boot up with the DVD drive as the primary boot drive. When I select Native IDE, the Acronis Disk Director doesn't recognize the SATA HDD.

Reply to slimbone
Silver Motherboards badge bilbat   11-03-2009 at 03:47:54 AM

"Native IDE" under "OnChip SATA Type" is the one you want; you'll never recognize a RAID until you have configured a drive set (takes at least two drives) in the RAID BIOS; You could try AHCI, which will require a 'pre-load' driver, prior to installing windoze... Have you tried unplugging the IDE cable completely, and leaving it at 'Native'? What version of Acronis are you using?

Reply to bilbat
slimbone   11-03-2009 at 07:00:18 PM

I'm using Disk Director Suite 10.

The disk is recognized when I go to install windows 7 without creating the partion. But I have a faulty windows 7 DVD and it gives me BSOD during install.

I really just wanted to create the partion prior to installing windows 7. I've read it's better to do it that way.

Now I need to get another windows 7 DVD.....

Reply to slimbone
Silver Motherboards badge bilbat   11-03-2009 at 07:29:13 PM

You might try the bootable, 'live' edition of G_PartEd, here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gp [...] o/download
just burn the iso to CD for a booting partition editor/creator...

Reply to bilbat
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