SATA issues...

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CalcProgrammer1

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OK, I'm going to start off by saying I'm a total noob when it comes to SATA. I've used IDE up until now, except for in my laptop (has a SATA drive, but since only one drive, no configuration was necessary).

For Christmas I got a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB, SATA 300 drive. Problem is, my computer has a Silicon Image SiI3112 chip that is limited to 1.5gbps mode. I can't get the stupid PC to see the drive. I know the drive is fine, got an external SATA/IDE enclosure and the drive works fine on that, used it to copy all my files to the drive but wanted to see if I could get it inside my PC. I also know that the SATA controller has worked once before in my PC, when my laptop's first hard drive got a bad sector, I cloned it to my warranty replacement and then stuffed the broken drive in my desktop for a good zeroing out before returning it to HP. The SATA controller recognized it just fine, though I'm pretty sure it was a 1.5Gbps drive.

I can't get the two to work together. I think I need to insert a jumper on the drive. I have a SATA power, SATA data, and then a 4 pin space on the back of my drive. The label says to put a jumper on two of the pins to go into 1.5gbps mode. Problem is, that doesn't seem to do anything. I don't know if my jumper isn't the right size (really tight fit, not sure if it's making connections), I pulled it off the master/slave settings from an IDE CD-RW drive. I also don't know how to configure BIOS for SATA, it appears to have a second BIOS for RAID stuff (only using one drive so not making a RAID). The BIOS lets me pick between IDE and RAID for SATA mode. I tried both, but nothing worked. It either gets stuck at the BIOS and does nothing, or it boots and never recognizes the drive is there. The drive continues to work fine in the external enclosure though.

At this point, I'm ready to give up and just use the external enclosure permanently, but I really wanted to make sure this worked, I plan to use this PC as a home server some day when I get a new desktop, but not supporting SATA drives renders that whole idea unusable.
 
Hmm...tried a different SATA port and it's working, but weird...PC Wizard made the screen go all messed up (on both monitors) and then crashed the PC when trying to read drive settings. Also I removed one of my IDE drives, I had 4 IDE before, now only 3. Can having all 4 IDE drives filled cause SATA to fail?
 
Wow, I never have had a problem with PCWizard. Not to say that isn't it, but that is strange in itself. Regarding the other stuff, I can't really help much with SATA. I only know that the whole master/slave/cable select thing doesn't figure into SATA like with IDE/EIDE/ATA etc drives.

I wonder if you need driver updates for the SATA controller ?
 
Hmm...I inserted my 4th IDE drive again and it works fine. It isn't drivers because the problem occurred even before reaching GRUB, let alone Vista or Ubuntu. I can access files on the SATA drive just fine (played a video from it) but I'll try PCWizard again and see if it messes up the screen like it did last time.
 
Ah, ok, well good luck - keep us informed.

I also don't know how to configure BIOS for SATA, it appears to have a second BIOS for RAID stuff (only using one drive so not making a RAID). The BIOS lets me pick between IDE and RAID for SATA mode.

That is really weird, to me, in the BIOS your two options are IDE or RAID for SATA... IDE and SATA use different controllers altogether, or does it mean option 1, IDE and option 2 SATA using RAID ?

Here is a link for an IDE to SATA converter, I thought it might be possible to connect your IDE drives to SATA controllers with these things :

Amazon.com: IDE to SATA Converter - Converts IDE Drive to SATA Interface: Electronics
 
SATA doesnt require Jumpers. The only Jumper you would need would be for the speed limiter. So that is right the way you have it setup.

Now you have to check your BIOS. Most BIOS's that i have worked with have SATA functions where you turn on the specific port you are working with. So you would hook up the Drive to SATA Port 1 and have to turn that port ON in the BIOS.

The reason they are off is if they were on the system would try to start them up and nothing would be hooked up and cause conflict.

So hook up the drive then check your BIOS to make sure the port is on. Should work then.
 
Hmm...good point. After playing around with it, rebooting a lot, etc...I figured out that only the bottom two ports (SATA3&4) seem to work. SATA 1 and 2 do not recognize anything. I'll look through to see if I can turn them on, if not, probably just "fake ports" not wired up to the controller (though the manual says they should work, but it's a cheap mobo).
 
SATA doesnt require Jumpers. The only Jumper you would need would be for the speed limiter. So that is right the way you have it setup.

Now you have to check your BIOS. Most BIOS's that i have worked with have SATA functions where you turn on the specific port you are working with. So you would hook up the Drive to SATA Port 1 and have to turn that port ON in the BIOS.

The reason they are off is if they were on the system would try to start them up and nothing would be hooked up and cause conflict.

So hook up the drive then check your BIOS to make sure the port is on. Should work then.

I've never had to turn ports on/off and have never heard of that either. As such, I have no idea what you're talking about.
 
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