SATA / IDE Hard Drive Issues

[zonda]

Hows it going guys, it's been a while. Anyways, I'm having a few troubles with several hard drives, so grab a glass of milk and some cookies because your going to be sitting here a while.

 

 

 

Okay. So to start the story, I was using three seperate hard drives as follows:

 

 

 

IDE 0 - 40 Gig - Master

 

IDE 0 - 80 Gig - Slave

 

-------------------------

 

IDE 1 - 15 Gig - Slave

 

IDE 1 - (CD-RW Drive)

 

 

 

Not only is it a hassle to juggle files between multiple hard drives, but the 127 gigabytes or so of space was not nearly sufficient enough for me. In fact I am using an old laptop and an old dell to store other files of mine that wouldn't fit on these drives.

 

 

 

So the solution was obviously to buy a new hard drive and this is what I did. I bought a 500 gig hard drive from western digital, and it being newer it is SATA. My MSI motherboard has 2 SATA slots, so I hooked it up, but at first it was not being recognized.

 

 

 

So - I took all the IDE hard drives out, and put the SATA in by itself. Still no luck. I then went into BIOS and after some trial and error managed to get it to recognize the SATA hard drive.

 

 

 

I then put the 80 gig IDE hard drive in and the 40 gig IDE hard drive in, the computer booted up fine, but this time the SATA hard drive is no longer recognized. I know it has power, I can feel and hear it spinning... so basically why is it no longer being recognized? Does it have something to do with the jumper slot for master/slave???

 

 

 

I know that by default SATA is suppose to be master over any IDE drives (right?) but I want the 40 gig IDE to stay master since that has my copy of WinXP on it. So I want it to look like this:

 

 

 

IDE 0 - 40gig Master

 

IDE 0 - 80gig Slave

 

---------------------

 

IDE 1 - CD-RW Drive (Master)

 

IDE 1 - CD-R Drive (Slave) [i already have this set up and working]

 

---------------------

 

IDE 2 - 500gig Slave

 

IDE 3 - nothing

 

 

 

So does anyone have any idea why when the 40&80 drives are hooked up, it shows nothing hooked up in IDE 2, but when I take the 40&80 drives out it shows up fine? Again the only thing I can think of is the jumper slots... and like I said, I know SATA usually takes master over IDE... but there is a pin slot thing on the back of the HDD, however it's OEM and I don't know where to put the pin to set it as another slave (if that is indeed the problem)

 

 

 

I will edit this in about 5 minutes with what I changed in BIOS.

 

 

 

Ok - In BIOS under "peripheral devices" I think is was... well... I changed this:

 

 

 

OnChip SATA - Enabled

 

SATA Mode - it was RAID... I changed it to IDE. When set to RAID it was never recognized. When set to IDE it will be recognized when alone, but will show up as "none" when the two other drives are inserted... which is why I am lead to beleive again it has to do with the slave/master jumper slots.

 

 

 

There are a few other settings like Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, Secondary Slave and theses are for "PIO" and "UDMA" which I'm not sure what those are.

 

 

 

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

[blade995]

My first thought would be the jumper setting on the drive.

 

 

 

Even though you want the sata drive to be a slave, set the jumper to master.

 

 

 

Then in the bios if you still want to use that IDE drive with your Windows installation then go into the boot menu (in the bios) and select that as the first boot device (of hard drives).

 

 

 

Make sure the sata cable is in the correct sata slot. On my Gigabyte motherboard it has 2 sata ports that work in compatibility mode emulating IDE channels. The first port emulates the master ide plug on the cable and the second is for the slave ide plug. Your motherboard may be doing the same thing. Hope you understood what i'm trying to say :?

[zonda]

There is no jumper on the SATA drive - all SATA drives are "master" - the only way to differentiate between them is via the boot sequence. You can have one set to master and still have it acting as a slave so long as it boots second (or this is what I have been told and have read from various websites)

 

 

 

Another thing I've read is to take the jumpers out of the IDE drives completely and then set the IDE drives to boot before the SATA one.

 

 

 

I'll try moving the SATA cable on my MSI mobo and see if that helps.

 

 

 

Right now, though, I'm not as concerned about making it slave as I am making it show up when I have the other hard drives plugged in. I will try taking out the jumpers from the IDE drives and then see if the computer at least recognizes it

 

 

 

Basically what I am saying is I can't change the boot sequence if the computer says the drive is nonexistant - gotta fix one problem at a time.

[blade995]

There is no jumper on the SATA drive - all SATA drives are "master" - the only way to differentiate between them is via the boot sequence.

 

 

 

Well yes they are supposed to be set as masters on newer motherboards that run the sata ports in native mode. Since your motherboard is kind of old judging by only having 2 sata ports they are probably working in IDE mode which would require the jumpers.

[zonda]

Mmmk... well then how would I go about finding out which slot to put the jumper in for slave? All HDD's are different, and as I said before this one came with no label.

 

 

 

Tomorrow when I have more time I am going to try and remove the jumpers from the IDE HDD's like I said and see if that works... time will tell.

[Doomster]

Could be a BIOS mode problem, there are several modes for mixing SATA and IDE, some of which do not support all the avaiable channels.

[Chris]

SATA hardrives don't have jumpers for master/slave.

 

 

 

You wanna know why? Because you can only plug ONE SATA HDD into ONE SATA port. Unlike IDE where you can have TWO IDE HDD'S in ONE IDE port.

 

 

 

Sorry for the caps, just trying to make it stand out a bit more.

 

 

 

 

 

Try moving the drives about a bit more.

 

 

 

IDE0 Master - ROM1

 

IDE0 Slave - ROM2

 

IDE1 Master - 40GB

 

IDE1 Slave - 80GB

 

SATA0 - 500GB

 

SATA1 - X

 

 

 

or

 

 

 

IDE0 Master - ROM1

 

IDE0 Slave - ROM2

 

IDE1 Master - 40GB

 

IDE1 Slave - 840GB

 

SATA0 - X

 

SATA1 - 500GB

 

 

 

or

 

 

 

IDE0 Master - 40GB

 

IDE0 Slave - ROM1

 

IDE1 Master - 80GB

 

IDE1 Slave - ROM2

 

SATA0 - 500GB

 

SATA1 - X

 

 

 

or

 

 

 

IDE0 Master - ROM1

 

IDE0 Slave - 40GB

 

IDE1 Master - ROM2

 

IDE1 Slave - 80GB

 

SATA0 - X

 

SATA1 - 500GB

 

 

 

Etc...

 

 

 

For every different configuration, make sure you still have your 40GB set as the drive to boot from. Assuming you have a decent motherboard/BIOS this should be no problem.

 

 

 

 

 

The only thing that I can think may be happening is, because of your motherboards age, it's not fully compatible with SATA. So when the IDE0 port is full it's taking over the SATA port(s).

 

 

 

When trying to find out what's wrong with unusual things like this, the best way is always just trial and error. So play around a bit. :)

 

 

 

Edit: Oh yeah, the jumper on the back of the SATA drive is most likely a speed selector. New SATA2 drives have them to lower the speed to 150Mb/s (SATA1) for compatibilty.

[zonda]

Ya, that must be what its for because it is a 3gb/s SATA drive.

 

 

 

Anyway, the problem was completely random. I opened my case again the other morning and took the jumpers out of my IDE's which didn't help at all. I disconnected everything aside from the SATA - again this time it recognized it... I put the jumpers back into the IDE's and then rehooked them up. This time when I booted up it recognized the drive right away; I just had to go into BIOS and change the boot order.

 

 

 

Because you can only plug ONE SATA HDD into ONE SATA port. Unlike IDE where you can have TWO IDE HDD'S in ONE IDE port.

 

 

 

Er... I don't think thats correct. I have a cable that is split to allow 2 SATA connections on 1 SATA port and just from browsing on newegg I know some motherboards support up to 8 HDD's with 4 ports.

 

 

 

Anyway... now that the drives working theres one thing I've noticed. It continually spins (like its seeking) and then slows down again. Kind of like a car reving up and then letting back off the gas over and over. I think it is actually doing this because it has to compensate for the slower IDE drives - I assumed it would just spin slower but I guess thats not the case. All well, as long as it's not causing any problems and its not bad for the drive I'm happy.

[Chris]

Ya, that must be what its for because it is a 3gb/s SATA drive.

 

 

 

Anyway, the problem was completely random. I opened my case again the other morning and took the jumpers out of my IDE's which didn't help at all. I disconnected everything aside from the SATA - again this time it recognized it... I put the jumpers back into the IDE's and then rehooked them up. This time when I booted up it recognized the drive right away; I just had to go into BIOS and change the boot order.

 

 

 

Because you can only plug ONE SATA HDD into ONE SATA port. Unlike IDE where you can have TWO IDE HDD'S in ONE IDE port.

 

 

 

Er... I don't think thats correct. I have a cable that is split to allow 2 SATA connections on 1 SATA port and just from browsing on newegg I know some motherboards support up to 8 HDD's with 4 ports.

 

 

 

Anyway... now that the drives working theres one thing I've noticed. It continually spins (like its seeking) and then slows down again. Kind of like a car reving up and then letting back off the gas over and over. I think it is actually doing this because it has to compensate for the slower IDE drives - I assumed it would just spin slower but I guess thats not the case. All well, as long as it's not causing any problems and its not bad for the drive I'm happy.

 

 

 

If you don't mind, can you please link the motherboards that you seen. Not to meniton a picture or link of the cables you use. As I'm pretty damn sure you can only have 1 SATA device per port. Correct me if I'm wrong. :wink:

 

 

 

Good to hear that the computer's working the way it should, makes me kinda nervous what you're saying about the drive. Just make sure you keep S.M.A.R.T on in the BIOS and watch the drive, listen out for any clicking. If you have a faulty drive, you're not gonna be happy. :

 

 

 

Also, if it doesn't cause any serious problems, you could try changing the jumper on the drive to switch it to SATA150 mode. Also make sure the drive has its own power. It might be sharing with too many devices? :-k

[blade995]

Here's a raid card that has sata cables that support 4 drives,

 

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816151018

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage ... +supported)+and+JBOD+-+Retail

 

 

 

There are a lot cheaper one but I picked this one because it was easy to find and has a good picture showing the cables.

[Chris]

Here's a raid card that has sata cables that support 4 drives,

 

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816151018

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage ... +supported)+and+JBOD+-+Retail

 

 

 

There are a lot cheaper one but I picked this one because it was easy to find and has a good picture showing the cables.

 

 

 

Looks like we're both right. :)

 

 

 

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/exp ... 07,00.html

 

 

 

As it says there, normal desktop solutions are one drive to one port. But in a commercial environment (server) you may be able to use cables like the one you posted. With I assume special hardware/software.

 

 

 

Much more information here: http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp

 

 

 

If you like reading. :P

[blade995]

Here's a raid card that has sata cables that support 4 drives,

 

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816151018

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage ... +supported)+and+JBOD+-+Retail

 

 

 

There are a lot cheaper one but I picked this one because it was easy to find and has a good picture showing the cables.

 

 

 

Looks like we're both right. :)

 

 

 

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/exp ... 07,00.html

 

 

 

As it says there, normal desktop solutions are one drive to one port. But in a commercial environment (server) you may be able to use cables like the one you posted. With I assume special hardware/software.

 

 

 

Much more information here: http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp

 

 

 

If you like reading. :P

 

 

 

Oh I have seen normal desktop motherboard with these, but very few on them. The motherboard was also like $300.

 

 

 

I selected that because I was too lazy to look through the motherboards. Anyways, thats why sata hard drives do have master and slave pins for the odd occurrence you would use them with a raid card or an expensive motherboard.

[zonda]

I havn't had time to post, been working alot. Anyway, just to update you guys - The hard drive was making the revving noise simply because of how it was sitting in the case. I didn't bother / forgot to screw it in completely. I only put one screw in to hold it in temporarily while I was still working out all the kinks. Turns out I didn't put the other 3 in, which resulted in the hard drive sitting in there at a slant, somewhat sideways. For anyone who has taken a HDD out while it was on, you'll know that those suckers spin quite fast, and that they actually have like their own wierd form of enertia or gravity or something. Anyway, it's fine now...

 

 

 

and if you have no clue what I'm talking about, take your hard drive out while its spinning and hold it in your hand, and then rotate it vertically and horizontally, it feels wierd =)

 

 

 

and no, it wont explode if you do so.

[Chris]

Here's a raid card that has sata cables that support 4 drives,

 

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6816151018

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage ... +supported)+and+JBOD+-+Retail

 

 

 

There are a lot cheaper one but I picked this one because it was easy to find and has a good picture showing the cables.

 

 

 

Looks like we're both right. :)

 

 

 

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/exp ... 07,00.html

 

 

 

As it says there, normal desktop solutions are one drive to one port. But in a commercial environment (server) you may be able to use cables like the one you posted. With I assume special hardware/software.

 

 

 

Much more information here: http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp

 

 

 

If you like reading. :P

 

 

 

Oh I have seen normal desktop motherboard with these, but very few on them. The motherboard was also like $300.

 

 

 

I selected that because I was too lazy to look through the motherboards. Anyways, thats why sata hard drives do have master and slave pins for the odd occurrence you would use them with a raid card or an expensive motherboard.

 

 

 

But SATA drives don't have master and slave selectors. >.<

 

 

 

Read the damn links. It's all to do with the cables. 1 side plugs into the port and a multitude of cables on the other end can be connected to several drives. Not master/slave. Hell if it was like that you could only have two. -.-

 

 

 

And honestly a desktop with this functionality? Prove it. I proved my point. You owe it to me to prove yours.

[zonda]

err, my MSI board can do it, and it is not only a bit older, but one of their cheaper models. And no, there are no jumpers for the SATA drives, you just set which one is master and which one(s) is/are slave(s) using the boot sequence order in BIOS.

[Chris]

err, my MSI board can do it, and it is not only a bit older, but one of their cheaper models. And no, there are no jumpers for the SATA drives, you just set which one is master and which one(s) is/are slave(s) using the boot sequence order in BIOS.

 

 

 

Bonus points. :thumbsup: