SATA Drive Worries on Athlon 2800+ PC Chips K8 M871G Socket 754 MoBo

Posted on Dec 27, 2005 05:22 am
carbonic44
Member Since: Nov 23, 2005

Im sure some of you hopped on the SATA wagon in the last year or 2 and had some sort of problems. I'm running Win XP Pro on a Athlon 2800+ PC Chips brand K8 M871G v1.5 , Socket 754 MoBo. with Sis964 Chipset. I cannot get Windows to recognize a Samsung 80 Gb SATA drive. I've contacted PC Chips re. this issue and they have been little help. There is no flash utility in BIOS (v02.54 American Megatrends), and the PC Chips website only has BIOS updates for the v3.x M871G Mobo, not the v1.5 M871G Mobo. Although, I did install the updated MoBo drivers onto the 60Gb IDE Primary Master drive that housed WinXP Pro before I developed this keen sense of SATAism. Initially, I wanted to install WindowsXP on the 80Gb SATA and was going to buy another 200Gb SATA or something for file storage. I had planned to use the 80Gb SATA (divy into 3-4 particians) for OS, programs, VST, etc. The IDE's will go in my old box if this will work. While in WinXp set-up, I F6'd for Raid or Third Party drivers. According to PC Chips and other info. findings on net,at this point, its imperative to have the latest raid drivers from Mobo manufacturer copied to the root of a floppy disk (must be root I guess), and proceed. this was my last response back to PC Chips.....

~~"I must need a BIOS update. If you review my 1st inquiry, I asked you how to update BIOS and received no response !? The version I have now is American Megatrends v02.54. There is no FLASH utility in this version of BIOS !!!!!! NOWHERE in my BIOS is there ANY option to set SATA mode to IDE mode as you suggested. Only in "Features Setup" there is the "Onboard PCI S-ATA Controller" which ONLY allows you to Disable or Enable. Also, when it is enabled, the drive does become available in the boot order in the "Advanced Setup." The MoBo uses a Sis Chipset. I have tried the F6 option with the files from \RAID\SiS\FloppyImage\96x copied to the root on a freshly formatted floppy disk. I then choose "s" to specify additional adapters for SCSI. Then I choose "WinXP 32bit SiS Raide/IDE Controller, which is the OBVIOUSLY correct choice and then the screen reads.. FIle \Raid\WINXP\SiSRaid.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 2108 in d:\expclient\base\boot\setup\oeqdisk.c. I have copyed the files off the original PC Chips MoBo disk and tried, then the new ones from the update, and either on different floppy disks written from 3 different floppy drives !!!!!!!! None work. Also, I have used 2 different copies of registered WindowsXP Pro, both of which have installed fine on IDE based computer set-ups. Thank you for your efforts."~~

Well, certain aspects of computer building I'm still a bit hazy on. I.e , I've only Flashed BIOS on 2 computers before but both had flash utilities. Yes, the SATA drive is pluged in correctly, and has been tried in con1 and con2 jacks, and NO there are not jumpers on the SATA drive. Since SATA's are basically recognized as RAID, could there be some thing I'm missing there?(this BIOS is really basic for a 64-bit machine). I have since reinsatlled the 60 & 80 Gb IDE drives until I get this SATA-thing resolved. I went to the Sis website and downloaded the latest chipset drivers which included the SIS Raid utility. The desktop Sis Raid panel recognizes the Samsung SP0812C 74.5G (Primary Master-1) in the create raid tab.. What should I do to make in noticable in My Computer ?, and , How do I access the drive in general? I have no previous experience with Raid Drives,Raid Arrays, or PATA drive set-ups... To sum it up. SATA shows in boot order( acts the same no matter where it is placed in order), and ....when the SATA drive is connected in presence of an IDE set up with WinXP on primary master, SIS Raid Desktop feature shows drive, but doesn't show it in in My Computer. How can I access drive AT ALL, either on a IDE installed OS system, or fresh on a SATA installed OS system (I'd really prefer the later to work !) Do I need to make the SATA drive a JBOD, RAID 0(Stripe) or RAID 1 (Mirror) in the Raid Utility to bring this drive to a formattable state ? Thankx, I know it was a lot! Anyone ?!?

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