BIOS Not Autodetecting SATA Drive

Mainboard: GA-M55plus-S3G, Rev 1.2.

Hard drives: Two IDE (80GB and 160GB), one SATA (2TB
Seagate).

Problem: After a power-off, the BIOS doesn't auto-detect
the SATA drive. If I manually tell it to detect it, it
does, but the drive is still not listed in the boot drive
order, so I have to save the setup and restart, and then go
back in and set the drive order.

The next time the machine sits with power off, the problem
returns.

I've replaced the CMOS battery with a new, tested one.

All other BIOS settings seem to be holding just fine.

I've tried many different settings in the BIOS, but nothing
seems to fix this.

Any ideas?

--
croy

croy wrote:
Mainboard: GA-M55plus-S3G, Rev 1.2.

Hard drives: Two IDE (80GB and 160GB), one SATA (2TB
Seagate).

Problem: After a power-off, the BIOS doesn't auto-detect
the SATA drive. If I manually tell it to detect it, it
does, but the drive is still not listed in the boot drive
order, so I have to save the setup and restart, and then go
back in and set the drive order.

The next time the machine sits with power off, the problem
returns.

I've replaced the CMOS battery with a new, tested one.

All other BIOS settings seem to be holding just fine.

I've tried many different settings in the BIOS, but nothing
seems to fix this.

Any ideas?


Are the SATA RAID settings involved in this, in any way ?

It's possible to set up SATA for RAID mode, then run a
single disk in JBOD. But you could just as easily, disable
JBOD on the disk, turn off RAID mode for SATA, and operate
the disk as a SATA/IDE disk on the SATA port.

Some motherboards have a 35 second timeout on disk detection,
and the timer can be adjusted in the BIOS. I don't see anything
in the manual which corresponds to that adjustment. The ATA/ATAPI
spec allows up to 35 seconds for a hard drive to signal "ready" and
accept command requests.

So on your motherboard, I don't see a lot of controls, other than
the RAID on SATA controls. You could try disabling the IDE ribbon
cable controllers, and see if the SATA is detected more reliably,
but I don't really expect that to make a difference.

Paul

On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:34:25 -0400, Paul
wrote:


Thanks for the reply Paul.


Are the SATA RAID settings involved in this, in any way ?


Here's what I see in the BIOS Setup:

CMOS Setup Utility (Award)
SATA-II RAID Config

SATA-II RAID function [Disabled]

Serial-ATA-II 1 [Enabled]
x SATA-II 1 Primary RAID Disabled
x SATA-II 2 Primary RAID Disabled

Serial-ATA-II 2 [Enabled]
x SATA-II 1 Primary RAID Disabled
x SATA-II 2 Primary RAID Disabled



It's possible to set up SATA for RAID mode, then run a
single disk in JBOD. But you could just as easily, disable
JBOD on the disk, turn off RAID mode for SATA, and operate
the disk as a SATA/IDE disk on the SATA port.


How do I disable JBOD on the disk? [this is a Seagate
ST23000641AS]. I don't see any jumpers, either on the
hardware, or talked about in the drive manual.

--
croy

On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:34:25 -0400, Paul
wrote:

You could try disabling the IDE ribbon
cable controllers, and see if the SATA is detected more reliably,
but I don't really expect that to make a difference.


I just tried that in the BIOS, but, as you expected, it
didn't make a difference.

--
croy

croy wrote:
On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:34:25 -0400, Paul
wrote:

You could try disabling the IDE ribbon
cable controllers, and see if the SATA is detected more reliably,
but I don't really expect that to make a difference.


I just tried that in the BIOS, but, as you expected, it
didn't make a difference.


You've exhausted all the options I could see.

Your BIOS does indeed have the RAID settings disabled.
So that's not it.

JBOD only applies if RAID is enabled on the motherboard,
It's not a jumper on the drive. It is up to the RAID BIOS code,
to write metadata up near the end of the disk, if the drive
is to be used in some RAID mode.

I don't know what else to suggest. I haven't heard of any
Nvidia issues with SATA compatibility.

I'd probably check through the M.I.T. page of your BIOS,
and disable any voltage adjustments or overclocks, and
see if that changes things at all. The motherboard supports
changing SB or NB voltages for the chipset, and it's possible
the SATA interface is tied to one of those settings. I don't see
any clock signal adjustments, that would figure in the issue.
The PCI Express clock probably isn't tied into the SATA ports
any more.

Paul