GA-MA78G-DS3H problem with SATA-drives

Hi all,

equipment: - board as above
- 2x2GB RAM-DDR2-800 bars
- Athlon 64 X2 6400
- Western Digital 500 GB SATA HDD (not partioned, not formatted, new)
- Hitachi 250 GB SATA HDD (not partioned, not formatted, new)
- Samsung DVD Burner SATA
- two eSATA slot brackets with cables attached to mainboard (no
devices attached outside)
all brand new.

Boot sequence is "1=CDROM" "2=HDD"
XP CD is inserted
"Enabled" BIOS' "OnChip SATA Controller"-option
If I turn on "AHCI" as "OnChip SATA Type" boot process stops while
"Verifying DMI Pool Data...."
If I turn on "Native IDE" as "Type" boot process finishes and XP
starts installation stating there were two disks ("drive 0 id 0 bus 0
and drive 0 id 1 bus 0") each with 131.070 MB

What is this all about?
Why does boot process stop when in AHCI mode? It might be necessary
to install os-drivers to fully use AHCI, but that should not work if
AHCI is turned off by BIOS (from my point of view or did I understand
something wrong?)
Why does XP report 131.070 MB for the drives?

Any hint appreciated
Frank

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:50:20 -0700 (PDT), Frank
wrote:

Hi all,

equipment: - board as above
- 2x2GB RAM-DDR2-800 bars
- Athlon 64 X2 6400
- Western Digital 500 GB SATA HDD (not partioned, not formatted, new)
- Hitachi 250 GB SATA HDD (not partioned, not formatted, new)
- Samsung DVD Burner SATA
- two eSATA slot brackets with cables attached to mainboard (no
devices attached outside)
all brand new.

Boot sequence is "1=CDROM" "2=HDD"
XP CD is inserted
"Enabled" BIOS' "OnChip SATA Controller"-option
If I turn on "AHCI" as "OnChip SATA Type" boot process stops while
"Verifying DMI Pool Data...."
If I turn on "Native IDE" as "Type" boot process finishes and XP
starts installation stating there were two disks ("drive 0 id 0 bus 0
and drive 0 id 1 bus 0") each with 131.070 MB

What is this all about?
Why does boot process stop when in AHCI mode? It might be necessary
to install os-drivers to fully use AHCI, but that should not work if
AHCI is turned off by BIOS (from my point of view or did I understand
something wrong?)

It shouldn't stop. Try removing all unnecessary hard drives. Does the
motherboard have the latest BIOS?

Why does XP report 131.070 MB for the drives?

You're using the original release of Windows XP that does not
incorporate SP1 or 2 or 3. If you install under AHCI mode, then you
have to load the SATA driver, which takes care of the problem.


Any hint appreciated
Frank

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On 19 Jun., 04:17, Andy wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:50:20 -0700 (PDT), Frank



wrote:
Hi all,

equipment: - board as above
- 2x2GB RAM-DDR2-800 bars
- Athlon 64 X2 6400
- Western Digital 500 GB SATA HDD (not partioned, not formatted, new)
- Hitachi 250 GB SATA HDD (not partioned, not formatted, new)
- Samsung DVD Burner SATA
- two eSATA slot brackets with cables attached to mainboard (no
devices attached outside)
all brand new.

Boot sequence is "1=CDROM" "2=HDD"
XP CD is inserted
"Enabled" BIOS' "OnChip SATA Controller"-option
If I turn on "AHCI" as "OnChip SATA Type" boot process stops while
"Verifying DMI Pool Data...."
If I turn on "Native IDE" as "Type" boot process finishes and XP
starts installation stating there were two disks ("drive 0 id 0 bus 0
and drive 0 id 1 bus 0") each with 131.070 MB

What is this all about?
Why does boot process stop when in AHCI mode? It might be necessary
to install os-drivers to fully use AHCI, but that should not work if
AHCI is turned off by BIOS (from my point of view or did I understand
something wrong?)

It shouldn't stop. Try removing all unnecessary hard drives. Does the
motherboard have the latest BIOS?

Why does XP report 131.070 MB for the drives?

You're using the original release of Windows XP that does not
incorporate SP1 or 2 or 3. If you install under AHCI mode, then you
have to load the SATA driver, which takes care of the problem.



Any hint appreciated
Frank

** Posted fromhttp://www.teranews.com**

Thanks Andy!

Finally solved the issue as follows:
- First, my initial description was uncomplete. An important missing
detail is that I tried to install XP, which failed prior to "you have
the following disks, where do you wanna install XP?". And it failed
with a blue screen. Afterwards system behaved liked described. What I
learned is, that this step modifies the MBR of the disk although,
there wasn't any partioning or formatting done to that point. I
thought, the disk would be clean and new at that time.
- Using Hitachi's Drive Fitness Tool to clean the MBR led to correct
beheauviour of the system. If you now use the floppy (F6 while
install) with "AMD SATA Drivers", everything works fine (no blue
screen and correct drive sizes)
- strange effect is, that not using the floppy leads to a somewhat
strange MBR, which blocks you on "Verifying DMI...)

Kind regrdas
Frank