Pc doesn't see a SATA HD

[pawelwg]

I have the PC in the following configuration:
2.30 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core, 256 kB primary memory cache, 1024 kB secondary memory cache, 64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total), Not hyper-threaded with
HD - ExcelStor Technology J8160S [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0, SMART Status: Healthy, installed on SATA port.
Board: MICRO-STAR INTERANTIONAL CO.,LTD MS-7367 1.0
Bus Clock: 200 MHz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. V3.0B1 10/12/2007
Win XP Pro SP3

I have recently installed on SATA port the second HD, and namely Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB 16MB (ST3500630A)
Unfortunately the operational system doesn't see the new HD, it doesn't also appear in the hardware manager.
Since the HD is second-hand I have made several tests and confirmed that:
1. bios sees both disks as installed on SATA ports,
2. bios is set to native IDE
3. bios is set to select other HD parameters automatically. BTW according to bios my DVD drive is installed as primary master.
4. Both HDs are also seen by GParted program which works in Linux environment;- this program successfully formatted Hd in question as well as established new partitions on it.
5. also program SeaTools for DOS (published by Seagate) sees both disks. It has found no faults in the HD in question.
6. as said earlier I have formatted the new disk (NTFS) and after removing the old original HD with WindowsXP I have installed the tested HD on the very same SATA port which earlier was occupied by the old one.
Afterwards I have tried to install on it the WindowsXP. Again the windows installer didn't see the disk so obviously the installation was unsuccessful..
7. The hardware manager confirms that the AMD SATA (native IDE mode) controller is on board.

All the time for my PC the HD seems to be non-existing. Why and how repair it?

 

[danny2000]

The only thing that I can think of that you didn't try, was to try it on another computer.

 

[popatim]

win XP (32 bit) cannot read GPT. Reformat as NTFS.

 

[pawelwg]

win XP (32 bit) cannot read GPT. Reformat as NTFS.

I don't understand what you mean; -as i've written in pt.6 of my original post the HD has been formatted in NTFS.
Do you suggest i should establish a new GPT?

 

[danny2000]

He means that you need to redo all of the partitions that might be on there, because they are fubar'd.

 

[pawelwg]

[He means that you need to redo all of the partitions that might be on there, because they are fubar'd./quote]

Obviously the might be so but I doubt.
When I bought the HD it was formatted (NTFS) and there were one partition .
I used GParted program and divided the disk in 3 partitions which I have again formatted (NTFS).
Since tests performed with SeaTool for DOS found no problems with the disk why should these partitons be fubar'd?

 

[danny2000]

Seatools tests the harddrive, and not necessarily the partition itself, I think.
Use the Windows setup disk to do the partitioning instead of the Gparted software.
See if that works. You can create the other partitions after that.

 

[pawelwg]

Seatools tests the harddrive, and not necessarily the partition itself, I think.
Use the Windows setup disk to do the partitioning instead of the Gparted software.
See if that works. You can create the other partitions after that.

I have already tried this.
I couldn' t do that because, as I mentioned before, this HD was not seen neither by Windows (e.g. a device manager, a disk manager) nor by the windows installer, -see # 6 of my original post.

 

[pawelwg]

It seems I have (at least partially) solved the problem;- I changed BIOS from "native IDE" into "legacy IDE" and then the HD with all its partition appeared in "my computer" and seems to be fully functional.
However I still don't understand :
1. why it doesn't work in "native IDE" mode while there is the AMD SATA (native IDE mode) controller on board?
2. why it doesn't work while connected to the port on which the other disk worked perfectly?
3. why it is impossible (?) to set BIOS separately for each of 4 SATA ports?
5. how to force PC to use both disks in their full potential , i. e. in SATA mode?

 

[popatim]

1: it might not work in native ide mode because your motherboard is sata1 and the new drive would be sata2 or 3. Some drives have a jumper on them to slow them down.

2: see 1

3: you cant set the ports individually because you only have 1 controller and thats what determins the port types.

5: You will not have any noticible performance loss, just the reduced maximum speed which is the read from the drives cache which is only 16mb. Your new drive is not fast enough to outpace any of the sata interfaces. I'm not even sure if your cache read can acheive higher than sata1 speed since its actually designed for ide and 100mb/s speed. Your sustained max read speed should be about 90mb/s with a minimum probably down in the upper 40's. (comparing it to my old seagates)

 

[pawelwg]

Thanks for the explanation! -but there are 2 points not quite clear for me:-

1: it might not work in native ide mode because your motherboard is sata1 and the new drive would be sata2 or 3. Some drives have a jumper on them to slow them down.

Yes it has a jumper indeed

2: see 1

But then why this SATA2 or 3 drive, "too fast" for working in "native SATA" mode is working perfectly well in at least similarly slow (or slower) "Legacy IDE" mode?

3: you cant set the ports individually because you only have 1 controller and thats what determins the port types.

5: You will not have any noticible performance loss, just the reduced maximum speed which is the read from the drives cache which is only 16mb. Your new drive is not fast enough to outpace any of the sata interfaces. I'm not even sure if your cache read can acheive higher than sata1 speed since its actually designed for ide and 100mb/s speed. Your sustained max read speed should be about 90mb/s with a minimum probably down in the upper 40's. (comparing it to my old seagates)

Do the circumstances quoted by you above mean that it is not worthwhile searching and installing additional SATA controllers which, as I presume, would allow my PC to communicate with both HD's in the "true", more advanced SATA mode i. e. AHCI

 

[fzabkar]

According to the manual (page 11) the SATA ports (SB600 southbridge) are capable of 3Gbps.

The IDE port supports UDMA 133 mode.

http://www.devicemanuals.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/K9AGM3-FD.pdf

ST3500630A is an IDE drive. Did you mean ST3500630AS?

The maximum sustained transfer rate for the ST3500630AS appears to be about 75 MB/s:
http://dyski.cdrinfo.pl/benchmark/hdtune/hdtune-22-99574-634uqp0kI7FtN.png

However, the product manual states that the drive has a 3Gbps SATA interface.

Barracuda 7200.10 Serial ATA Product Manual:
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/sata/100402371a.pdf

AIUI, the difference between "native" and "legacy" IDE modes is that the former uses PCI port addresses whereas the latter uses the traditional ISA port addresses (170h and 1F0h).