BIOS settings when using single SATA drive

[Greg Chapman]

Hi
I've just built a machine using a single SATA drive and a CD/DVD ROM drive,
on a GIgabyte GA-K8NS Pro mobo with an Athlon 64 3000 chip. Now, I have got
it all working, but about one time out of three it freezes around the
'Detecting IDE drives' shortly after booting up. Could anyone suggest
particular BIOS settings I need to change regarding IDE, SATA etc -
presumably I can ignore RAID (I've disabled it). Should the CD drive be in
IDE channel 1 or 2 or doesn't it matter?
For those who know the mobo, I've connected the hard drive to the SATAO_SB
connector.
Any suggestions gratefully received
Greg Chapman

 

[Jenny French]

I think I've found the answer to this - something to do with BIOS looking
for drives before they've warmed up properly, and I have to set a longer
boot delay. But the BIOS doesn't have a setting for this. Any suggestions?
Greg Chapman

 

[Derek]

I had a similar problem with my iDEQ 200N when I
installed a SATA drive. My problem was that the BIOS
boot order was not specified correctly. I essentially
had the following boot order:

[CDROM]
[HDD-0]
[Other]

The problem was that HDD-0 referred to my IDE drive
-- the one I had just removed and replaced with a
shiny new SATA HDD. Since my PC couldn't find HDD-0,
it tried booting from "Other", which meant sometimes
it tried to boot from my non-bootable IDE data drive
(HDD-1), sometimes it tried to boot from my empty
CDROM, and it even tried to boot from my iPod when
it was connected -- all causing hanging like you
describe.

On my motherboard the SATA drive is referred to as
SCSI in the boot list, so I changed my boot order
to this to make my problems go away:

[CDROM]
[SCSI]
[Other]

The channel or master/slave setting should matter
on your IDE drive, but you can make your CDROM
master (presumably without slave) on channel 1 if
you want to be safe.

 

[Greg Chapman]

Thanks Derek - I'll check that out.
Greg Chapman

I had a similar problem with my iDEQ 200N when I
installed a SATA drive. My problem was that the BIOS
boot order was not specified correctly. I essentially
had the following boot order:

[CDROM]
[HDD-0]
[Other]

The problem was that HDD-0 referred to my IDE drive
-- the one I had just removed and replaced with a
shiny new SATA HDD. Since my PC couldn't find HDD-0,
it tried booting from "Other", which meant sometimes
it tried to boot from my non-bootable IDE data drive
(HDD-1), sometimes it tried to boot from my empty
CDROM, and it even tried to boot from my iPod when
it was connected -- all causing hanging like you
describe.

On my motherboard the SATA drive is referred to as
SCSI in the boot list, so I changed my boot order
to this to make my problems go away:

[CDROM]
[SCSI]
[Other]

The channel or master/slave setting should matter
on your IDE drive, but you can make your CDROM
master (presumably without slave) on channel 1 if
you want to be safe.

Hi

I've just built a machine using a single SATA drive
and a CD/DVD ROM drive, on a GIgabyte GA-K8NS Pro
mobo with an Athlon 64 3000 chip. Now, I have got
it all working, but about one time out of three it
freezes around the 'Detecting IDE drives' shortly
after booting up. Could anyone suggest particular
BIOS settings I need to change regarding IDE, SATA
etc - presumably I can ignore RAID (I've disabled
it). Should the CD drive be in IDE channel 1 or
2 or doesn't it matter? For those who know the
mobo, I've connected the hard drive to the SATAO_SB
connector.

Any suggestions gratefully received

Greg Chapman

 

[Greg Chapman]

I finally worked it out - I'd plugged the SATA lead in the wrong socket
(there are four in two pairs, controlled by different parts of the board). I
can't believe there was no info either in the manual, or on the Gigabyte
website, about this!? It boots up fine now.
Anyway, thanks for your help.
Greg

I had a similar problem with my iDEQ 200N when I
installed a SATA drive. My problem was that the BIOS
boot order was not specified correctly. I essentially
had the following boot order:

[CDROM]
[HDD-0]
[Other]

The problem was that HDD-0 referred to my IDE drive
-- the one I had just removed and replaced with a
shiny new SATA HDD. Since my PC couldn't find HDD-0,
it tried booting from "Other", which meant sometimes
it tried to boot from my non-bootable IDE data drive
(HDD-1), sometimes it tried to boot from my empty
CDROM, and it even tried to boot from my iPod when
it was connected -- all causing hanging like you
describe.

On my motherboard the SATA drive is referred to as
SCSI in the boot list, so I changed my boot order
to this to make my problems go away:

[CDROM]
[SCSI]
[Other]

The channel or master/slave setting should matter
on your IDE drive, but you can make your CDROM
master (presumably without slave) on channel 1 if
you want to be safe.

Hi

I've just built a machine using a single SATA drive
and a CD/DVD ROM drive, on a GIgabyte GA-K8NS Pro
mobo with an Athlon 64 3000 chip. Now, I have got
it all working, but about one time out of three it
freezes around the 'Detecting IDE drives' shortly
after booting up. Could anyone suggest particular
BIOS settings I need to change regarding IDE, SATA
etc - presumably I can ignore RAID (I've disabled
it). Should the CD drive be in IDE channel 1 or
2 or doesn't it matter? For those who know the
mobo, I've connected the hard drive to the SATAO_SB
connector.

Any suggestions gratefully received

Greg Chapman

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I finally worked it out - I'd plugged the SATA lead in the wrong socket

(there are four in two pairs, controlled by different parts of the board).

Same problem probably on a majority of boards that have extra IDE
channels next to the CPU-chipset included ones.

I can't believe there was no info either in the manual, or on the Gigabyte
website, about this!?

That obviously didn't deter you of making conclusions that by your own
admission couldn't be made.

It boots up fine now.

It also would have on the other port if you had found out first on what port
that was and had set the bootsequence accordingly.

Anyway, thanks for your help.
Greg

[snip]