GA-8GPNXP Duo: some issues with IDE drives

I was referring to connectors for plugging the cables into the board?



"Noël Danjou" wrote in message
...
Hello Bruce,

Thanks for your reply.

There are 3 connectors on the two IDE cables provided with the motherboard
so I plugged 2 devices on each of them.

When I set the GigaRAID controler to "ATA", I get a "GigaRAID ATAPI BIOS
V1.41" message during the boot so it should mean that the controler is
acting as a true IDE controler and it should be able to support 2 * 2
devices.

Whether I plug the optical drives to IDE3 or to IDE, the devices are not
seen and the PX-130 is constantly blinking. It does work though since I
successfully tested it on another PC and played a video DVD with it.

When I previously tried different settings I saw the PX-712A a few times
when plugged to IDE3 but I am not sure what the settings were. But I never
saw the PX-130A so there still is an issue.

There does not seem to be a setup when the GigaRAID is configured as an
ATAPI controler.

I was not able to install XP yet since I cannot use my DVD drive.

Thanks.
--
Noël

Did you read this?
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...id=1660&page=4
See it says "only one IDE channel & primarally for optical drives"?
Put your CD & DVD on the cable that plugs into the RED socket.



"Noël Danjou" wrote in message
...
Hello Bruce,

Thanks for your reply.

There are 3 connectors on the two IDE cables provided with the motherboard
so I plugged 2 devices on each of them.

When I set the GigaRAID controler to "ATA", I get a "GigaRAID ATAPI BIOS
V1.41" message during the boot so it should mean that the controler is
acting as a true IDE controler and it should be able to support 2 * 2
devices.

Whether I plug the optical drives to IDE3 or to IDE, the devices are not
seen and the PX-130 is constantly blinking. It does work though since I
successfully tested it on another PC and played a video DVD with it.

When I previously tried different settings I saw the PX-712A a few times
when plugged to IDE3 but I am not sure what the settings were. But I never
saw the PX-130A so there still is an issue.

There does not seem to be a setup when the GigaRAID is configured as an
ATAPI controler.

I was not able to install XP yet since I cannot use my DVD drive.

Thanks.
--
Noël

No. That is not true.

It depends on the device and how it is configured. For example, add in PCI
IDE controllers will usually appear as IDE controllers. It depends on the
manufacturer to a large extent. Add in RAID controllers will appear most
usually as SCSI RAID - but not always. On board or On chip controllers may
appear as IDE or SCSI or either depending on the BIOS settings - see the
Intel ICH5R for an example. It can change itself from an 82801EB controller
(IDE) to an 82801ER controller via 1 bios setting.

The reason why SATA (and IDE sometimes) RAID controllers appear as SCSI is
that that is the type of interface the manufacturer has chosen to present.
SCSI has advantages even if the underlying device is IDE (or SATA) as it
supports overlapped (async) IO at the Controller Level which offloads this
task from the OS and in the case of Windows this reduces IO stalls because
the device is already busy (in basic terms - its not like this at all but
the gist is whats important). SATA is now supporting with NCQ these types of
features as standard.

- Tim


"Ian" wrote in message
...
ALL additional (i.e. not IDE1/2) IDE controllers are shown as SCSI
controllers in Windows. It's just the way it's done. The disks attached to
these will show as SCSI disks, even though they are obviously not.
Incidentally, the only way to check that they are in Mode6 (ATA133) is
usually on the boot up display message. You won't get this info in Device
manager with the additional controller/s.

Thank you all for your suggestions and informations. I still did not get a
reply from the local GigaByte support.

I did disable the SATA controller after posting my message sorry for not
mentioning it.

I did try to plug the HDDs to IDE1 and the optical drives to IDE2 to no
avail. The optical drives are still not detected.

I am fed up with the IDE troubles and I now decided to order new SATA drives
instead and to fully disable IDE H/W on the board. Hopefully this will work
and with Windows XP SP1a CD I should not need any diskette to install the
system and to detect all my drives.

Thank you all.
--
Noël

Sorry to see that you took so much notice of others.
Optical drives NEED to be on the ONLY true IDE channel. (IDE 1)
Did you read that page I sent the address to?
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...id=1660&page=4
All you experts who recommended him to put his HD's on IDE 1 ought to buy
one of these boards & try doing it before they give out advice.
ps. Even with you using SATA drives you will need to STILL put your optical
drives on IDE 1. (The green socket on the m/board)

"Noël Danjou" wrote in message
...
Thank you all for your suggestions and informations. I still did not get a
reply from the local GigaByte support.

I did disable the SATA controller after posting my message sorry for not
mentioning it.

I did try to plug the HDDs to IDE1 and the optical drives to IDE2 to no
avail. The optical drives are still not detected.

I am fed up with the IDE troubles and I now decided to order new SATA
drives
instead and to fully disable IDE H/W on the board. Hopefully this will
work
and with Windows XP SP1a CD I should not need any diskette to install the
system and to detect all my drives.

Thank you all.
--
Noël

Hello all,

Thanks again for all your support and detailed suggestions.

Yes I did read the page at pcstats.com. Thanks for the link.

The only connector of the true IDE is pink on this MB. The two IDE/RAID
ports are green.

There is "only" 3 IDE channels on this MB. IDE (the true IDE port) and
IDE2/IDE3 the two ports of the RAID/ATA controller. There is no IDE0 or
IDE4. IDE1 (channel 0) is simply called IDE while the RAID ports are IDE2
and IDE3.

I think I did try all the possible configurations, HDD and optical drives on
either IDE or IDE 2/IDE3. Either HDDs on the lowest port and optical drives
on the next one or the opposite. To no avail with the PX-130 and PX-712. I
just did not try to mix HDD (master) and optical drive (slave) per channel
but I am not sure it is worth trying.

On another hand, the PX-W2412 is detected on *any* of the IDE ports, either
IDE, IDE2 or IDE3 like the HDDs. The only drawback of connecting the
PX-W2412 to IDE2 or IDE3 is that I cannot boot from it while the ATAPI BIOS
detects that the CD-ROM is bootable. May be there is a key but I am not
sure.

I ordered two SATA HDD and two SATA DVD writers (I could not find a SATA
DVD-ROM) so all my drives will now be SATA so that I can possibly disabled
all IDE features in the BIOS.

It seems like a device incompatibility to me or a possible bug in the BIOS
or whatever. I know the drives are correctly set to master/slave on every
channel. I built and tweaked tens of PCs as well.

I cannot waste anymore time on those IDE issues. I just hope I am not
wasting my money as well buying those SATA devices.

Thanks again for all your help. I will let you know how it goes with the
SATA devices.

--
Noël

Yes, I agree with you about not wanting to start a "flame war" & that's why
I'm butting out.
All I'd like to do is to just come up with an answer about how someone
(anyone?) can get these new age boards up & running with IDE equipment.
In the next year or two there are going to be thousands, if not millions who
migrate over to these boards & want to take their IDE HD's & other (optical)
drives with them.
I believe that the easy way is simply to buy all new drives (SATA) to suit.
Wouldn't it be good if we could come up with an answer that states how to do
this in a simple 10 steps or so to follow?
Sorry to all the hundreds who might be going to read this thread that we
haven't come up with an answer for you.

Just take notice that on this board, the "only true IDE" ports are pink.
You can't read optical drives through a raid. (on a raid?)
You can't see or read your HD on a raid until you have your raid drivers
installed & your raid setup.
In closing just let me say that the one I setup is working with a CD & a DVD
on IDE1 & an IDE 80GB on IDE2 running as a single disk raid. (normal) with
bios set to boot from SCSI & bios HD boot order set to boot from this disk.

To get these to work you HAVE to forget all those years of "I've never
seen................."


"Noël Danjou" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

Thanks again for all your support and detailed suggestions.

Yes I did read the page at pcstats.com. Thanks for the link.

The only connector of the true IDE is pink on this MB. The two IDE/RAID
ports are green.

There is "only" 3 IDE channels on this MB. IDE (the true IDE port) and
IDE2/IDE3 the two ports of the RAID/ATA controller. There is no IDE0 or
IDE4. IDE1 (channel 0) is simply called IDE while the RAID ports are IDE2
and IDE3.

I think I did try all the possible configurations, HDD and optical drives
on
either IDE or IDE 2/IDE3. Either HDDs on the lowest port and optical
drives
on the next one or the opposite. To no avail with the PX-130 and PX-712. I
just did not try to mix HDD (master) and optical drive (slave) per channel
but I am not sure it is worth trying.

On another hand, the PX-W2412 is detected on *any* of the IDE ports,
either
IDE, IDE2 or IDE3 like the HDDs. The only drawback of connecting the
PX-W2412 to IDE2 or IDE3 is that I cannot boot from it while the ATAPI
BIOS
detects that the CD-ROM is bootable. May be there is a key but I am not
sure.

I ordered two SATA HDD and two SATA DVD writers (I could not find a SATA
DVD-ROM) so all my drives will now be SATA so that I can possibly disabled
all IDE features in the BIOS.

It seems like a device incompatibility to me or a possible bug in the BIOS
or whatever. I know the drives are correctly set to master/slave on every
channel. I built and tweaked tens of PCs as well.

I cannot waste anymore time on those IDE issues. I just hope I am not
wasting my money as well buying those SATA devices.

Thanks again for all your help. I will let you know how it goes with the
SATA devices.

--
Noël

Hello all,

I received my SATA drives and I installed them today. It's better but still
not perfect!

I first plugged my 4 drives 2 * Maxtor 80GB SATA and 2 * Plextor PX-712SA.

I plugged the 1st HDD on SATA1 (ch0, master), the second on SATA3 (ch0,
slave), the 1st writer on SATA2 (ch1, master) and 2nd writer on SATA4 (ch1,
slave).

I configured the BIOS like this:
- Disabled both On-Chip Primary and Secondary PCI IDE
- Disabled On-board H/W GigaRAID
- Disabled SATA RAID/AHCI Mode
- Set On-chip SATA mode to "Non-combined"

Since the disks are brand-new I wanted to boot off a Windows XP SP1 CD but
in this configuration, the bootable CD was not detected and I got message
like "System Disk not found. Press Enter". Sorry I don't remember the exact
message.

I then tried to set "SATA RAID/AHCI Mode" to AHCI, it is said that it is to
support hotplug but I don't know what else it does. So when I set this
option the bootable CD was seen (i.e. the DVD drives are detected in SATA!
pfff)

When I hit a key, the bootable CD starts, the Windows Setup begins but after
the Setup is done loading the drivers I get a BSOD:

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78DA63C, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Out of curiosity, I tried my Longhorn alpha preview CD and I got about the
same result.

The BIOS was set to boot like this:
1. Floppy
2. CD-ROM
3. Hard Disk

There is no option to boot from "SATA".

Any ideas how to fix this?

Since I could not boot off the CD, I had to put back my IDE HDD and remove
the SATA drives (while I still don't have a fix) so that I could install my
system.

In the BIOS I set the options like this:
- Enabled the On-chip Primary and Secondary PCI IDE
- Disabled SATA RAID/AHCI Mode
- Disabled On-board H/W GigaRAID
- Set On-chip SATA mode to "Enhanced"
Ch0 - M/S PATA
Ch2 - M/S SATA Port 0/2
Ch2 - M/S SATA Port 1/3


I connected my IDE HDDs to the true IDE connector (pink) and that way I can
use Windows and use my two SATA DVD writers.

It's almost OK but I still cannot boot from my CD/DVD without the BSOD and
now I'd like to be able to install Windows XP and LH on my SATA 80GB HDDs so
that I can disable all the IDE ports and only work with SATA.

Also I still don't see the POST screen, I wonder why. Is it an issue with
BIOS V. F6?

Your suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

--
Noël

The stop message (7B - Inaccessiable boot device) most likely means you did
not supply the SATA drives using F6 during setup.
The drivers are invariably on the motherboard CD and you will need to create
an install floppy - the method will be detailed in the manual. Consider
checking the web site for a more recent driver set to save updating later.

My apologies for falling into the trap and assuming that you mobo had two
real IDE ports... Times are changing.

- Tim

"Noël Danjou" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

I received my SATA drives and I installed them today. It's better but
still not perfect!

I first plugged my 4 drives 2 * Maxtor 80GB SATA and 2 * Plextor PX-712SA.

I plugged the 1st HDD on SATA1 (ch0, master), the second on SATA3 (ch0,
slave), the 1st writer on SATA2 (ch1, master) and 2nd writer on SATA4
(ch1, slave).

I configured the BIOS like this:
- Disabled both On-Chip Primary and Secondary PCI IDE
- Disabled On-board H/W GigaRAID
- Disabled SATA RAID/AHCI Mode
- Set On-chip SATA mode to "Non-combined"

Since the disks are brand-new I wanted to boot off a Windows XP SP1 CD but
in this configuration, the bootable CD was not detected and I got message
like "System Disk not found. Press Enter". Sorry I don't remember the
exact message.

I then tried to set "SATA RAID/AHCI Mode" to AHCI, it is said that it is
to support hotplug but I don't know what else it does. So when I set this
option the bootable CD was seen (i.e. the DVD drives are detected in SATA!
pfff)

When I hit a key, the bootable CD starts, the Windows Setup begins but
after the Setup is done loading the drivers I get a BSOD:

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78DA63C, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Out of curiosity, I tried my Longhorn alpha preview CD and I got about the
same result.

The BIOS was set to boot like this:
1. Floppy
2. CD-ROM
3. Hard Disk

There is no option to boot from "SATA".

Any ideas how to fix this?

Since I could not boot off the CD, I had to put back my IDE HDD and remove
the SATA drives (while I still don't have a fix) so that I could install
my system.

In the BIOS I set the options like this:
- Enabled the On-chip Primary and Secondary PCI IDE
- Disabled SATA RAID/AHCI Mode
- Disabled On-board H/W GigaRAID
- Set On-chip SATA mode to "Enhanced"
Ch0 - M/S PATA
Ch2 - M/S SATA Port 0/2
Ch2 - M/S SATA Port 1/3


I connected my IDE HDDs to the true IDE connector (pink) and that way I
can use Windows and use my two SATA DVD writers.

It's almost OK but I still cannot boot from my CD/DVD without the BSOD and
now I'd like to be able to install Windows XP and LH on my SATA 80GB HDDs
so that I can disable all the IDE ports and only work with SATA.

Also I still don't see the POST screen, I wonder why. Is it an issue with
BIOS V. F6?

Your suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

--
Noël

So has anyone been able to make this motherboard work correctly? I
have tried switching from IDE 1 to 2, etc, back and forth, I have all
IDE hard drives and I cant seems to make this thing work. Any
suggestions? PLEASE HELP!!