Master slave for sata hdd in asus m5a97

mahmud2345

Honorable
Jun 2, 2012
4
0
10,510
I am using Asus UEFI M5A97 motherboard. I have GPT formatted WD30EZRX Caviar Green 3T. The OS is Win7 64-bit Ultimate. The system is working fine with that hd. I have another hd WD2002FAEX, a Western Digitial 2T Black edition. On it, there is also similar OS Win7 64-bit Ultimate. This one is formatted in normal MBR. It is also working fine on its own.

The problem arise when I am attaching both the hds on the system. I want to boot on the 3T and to treat the 2T as secondary (slave). When I do that the system does not boot. So far I am not able to configure the BIOS to make it work. After a few trying with the BIOS settings, the system manages to boot on the 2T but that is not what I wanted.

The only way I could use all the hd is by 'brute-forth'. I think that's the term. I make use of hds hot swapable. Leave the side cover open at all times. Plug the power cables to all available hds (but not the sata cables - the cables are plugged onto the board only). Plug the sata cable to the 3T drive and boot the system. When the system is up, plug the other sata cable to the other hd that I want to use as secondary. Plug in more sata cables to other hds if you need. I tried with four and the system recognizes them all.

Probably that is not a proper way to work on.

Mahmud, Malaysia.
 
there is no master/slave with sata hard drives

thats only for ide

if both hard drives are bootable you should be able to press an f key at start up to get a boot menu and select the drive you

want to boot from

usually f12 or f8 key sometimes on asus boards--have to do it quickly if its f8 or you will get the safe mode etc option screen
 

mahmud2345

Honorable
Jun 2, 2012
4
0
10,510
Thank you Mr Mcnumpty23 for confirming sata has no master/slave.
Pressing F8 is equivalent to pressing DEL key to get to selecting the drive to boot as you said. Pressing DEL key also get to a graphical boot menu where we can make Sata Configuration, select Hard Drive BBS Priorities and select Boot Options etc. I suppose that is where I am stuck.

When I select the harrdisk by name, the system hung at POST, unless I select Windows Boot Manager as first boot, and as I said earlier I cannot attach more than one harddisk, system hung at POST.
 

mahmud2345

Honorable
Jun 2, 2012
4
0
10,510
Asus UEFI M5A97 motherboard
hd1 - WD30EZRX (3T) - GPT
hd2 - WD2002FAEX (2T) - MBR
Each has Win7 64-bit Ultimate

SB Sata Configuration: Sata ports 1 - 4 (ACHI), Sata ports 5-6 (ACHI). 3T on port 1,

2T on port 2. I have also a card reader unit placed where floppy disk used to be,

with interfaces - sd, cf etc readers, sata and esata, usb ports, and a power sata

port.

I have tried several possibilities to no avail. Both hds attached. I disabled DVD and

card readers in the BIOS.

Hard Drive BBS priorities: Boot Option #1 - 3T, Boot option #2- disable, system hung

with blinking cursor at top left hand corner.

Boot Option #1 - Windows Boot Manager, Boot option #2 - disable, I got Window

launching page with choices of Launch Startup Repair (LSR) and Start Windows Normally

(SWN), Choosing LSR, system repeats the page. Choosing SWN, system came back with

advanced BIOS page. This repetition occurs every time I chose LSR or SWM.

Boot option #1 - 3T, Boot option #2 - 2T, system hung.

After trying all above, hot unplug 2T and reboot, the system went into repair mode.

cancel twice, system boots with only 3T hd.

Probabily my Windows installation on 3T was not proper. That is why I get choice of

LSR and SWN. I have not redone (redo) that.

For now I resort to what I call 'brute-forth' method, while waiting for new light to

shine.

 

mahmud2345

Honorable
Jun 2, 2012
4
0
10,510

All 6 are sata3 in groups of port1 - port4 and port5 - port6, can choose ACHI, YDE or RAID. Listed also for each 0f 6 may be able or disable.