It's never easy is it

[Richard C]

Hi O wise ones; I don't visit this particular Forum very often but I hope you won't hold that against me.
I have an ECS KV2 Lite mobo currently running one SATA master HDD with a couple of older legacy EIDE drives as storage slaves. One is failing so yesterday, I have a browse & order a Samsung HD 103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD on free delivery with a couple of other bits. I’m a long time regular & not sure if that makes any difference but, as usual, the brilliant Ebuyer service delivered it early the very next afternoon. Great; I’ll get this going on format before dinner; so I open case, connect up, hit the power on button & ----- nothing; it won’t go beyond the pretty “KV2 Lite” graphic screen. Tried other/new cables, swapping cable connections around & even dissing my current master SATA to see if it would go to BIOS on its’ own but no matter what I do, it wont go beyond the initial graphic screen; if I disconnect the new drive, it all boots as normal.

The very brief Samsung instructions note that "in rare cases older 1.5MB/s mobo interfaces may be unable to establish connection with 3MB/s drives" & advice to switch the drive to 1.5MB/s using Samsung software available on their website but a quick site visit was pretty fruitless. I can’t see how any software will work if I cant even get to BIOS with the drive connected, unless some sort of BIOS flash is involved!

I’m assuming there is not a fault with the drive? Is my now admittedly "little long in the tooth", 1.5MB/s mobo capable of recognizing the new 3MB/s drive or am I also looking at a Mobo upgrade to get the drive to work? Not a novice but I haven’t had as much experience with SATA problems as I would like so not sure if I’m missing a trick or even the bleedin obvious!

Any help very gratefully received.

 

[Synapse]

Usually SATA-II drives have a hardware jumper that allow you to use the drive in legacy SATA 1.0 mode.

A quick Google returned this:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=121

http://www.samsung.com/global/syste...5620051216154941_SATAspeedselectionjumper.jpg

 

[Richard C]

The jumper block on Samsung drive only has 4 pins & not the 8 shown on their sketch but they are present in the relative locations so I set the jumper on the two the sketch indicated. Disc is now at least spinning up (it obviously wasn’t before but I didn’t realise, just thought it was very quiet!) & PC will now boot but Windows doesn’t see the drive.

Entered BIOS & tried to force CMOS to auto detect the drive, but it fails to register, like it’s not even there; any ideas? Would clearing CMOS help here?

 

[Synapse]

When you say "Windows doesn't see the drive" do you mean it isn't listed within the Disk Manager or elsewhere?

Although that's to be expected if the drive doesn't list in BIOS, I assume you've checked that the data and power cables are correctly seated?

 

[Richard C]

When you say "Windows doesn't see the drive" do you mean it isn't listed within the Disk Manager or elsewhere?

After I fitted the jumper across pins 3/4 I let the system boot 1st time in the hope that it would appear in Disk Manager & I could just get on with formatting but no such luck so rebooted & had a look in BIOS.

Although that's to be expected if the drive doesn't list in BIOS, I assume you've checked that the data and power cables are correctly seated?

No, not listed in BIOS & hitting auto detect doesn’t work either, almost like it’s not even there. Checked the power/data cables & the disk is actually spinning up. Resetting CMOS has been suggested but I’m a little concerned that may screw something else up?

That link you posted also contains instructions for installing a software patch via a boot diskette (which I now have a zip file for) but Samsungs pigeon English instructions for execution doesn’t exactly make the process clear & I’m a little concerned I could end up with a brand new but completely useless HDD if I get it wrong; I worked in S Korea for 6 years so can usually work through the torture but these instructions are on a different level; far from clear. I only checked SATA 1 / 2 compatibility before rushing out & buying the drive, now wish I’d done a bit more digging as some things I’m reading would seem to indicate this as a common problem with Samsung drives on older mobo’s!

 

[Richard C]

Thought I would post an update to complete this thread for the possible benefit of others.

After unsuccessful attempts to get my MB to recognise this drive & a lot of digging around I have manage to establish that there is a known problem (to a few at least) that SATA1 MB’s with a VIA VT8237 chipset (& I believe others are also affected) will not recognise this drive. Jumpering doesn’t work & you cannot effect the Samsung patch to force it to SATA 150 without access to another PC that will recognise the drive; how useless is that.

I did consider upgrading with a MB bundle but it seems a bit drastic especially as things have moved on to the extent I would also have to replace several PATA devices I’m still running. I now intend returning the drive to supplier under RMA at my own expense for a refund.

So anyone considering a Samsung SATA2 drive, BE WARNED they (should) come with a health warning if you’re still running a legacy SATA1 MoBo; check first as it could save you a lot of hassle.

 

[Monkeh]

The health warning should come with the VIA chipsets, which are badly broken.

Just buy an SATA controller. They're not expensive.

 

[Richard C]

Just buy an SATA controller. They're not expensive.

Thanks for the response. Having had a bad experience with one in the very early SATA days I didn’t even think of that; presumably a PCI board? Absolutely no intention of questioning your knowledge but will it overcome the basic problem of a crap south bridge chipset? I’m so rusty now & punching in the dark really but won’t PCI be too far down in the line if BIOS won't even register the drive?

If you think it will work, it may be a feasible stopgap as it will be a lot cheaper than upgrading my MoBo/processor/memory/PCI cards/legacy PATA drives which all seem to have moved on. The basic system is only 2 ½ years old & still pretty good overall. It’s certainly got another 18 months in it by which time everything will have moved on another couple of light years!

 

[Monkeh]

presumably a PCI board?

PCI-E would be preferable.

Absolutely no intention of questioning your knowledge but will it overcome the basic problem of a crap south bridge chipset? I’m so rusty now & punching in the dark really but won’t PCI be too far down in the line if BIOS won't even register the drive?

Unless the BIOS has a major fault (unlikely, it's a controller issue, not related to the BIOS), it should be fine.

If you think it will work, it may be a feasible stopgap

I see no good reason it shouldn't.

I'd recommend one of these: http://www.sweexdirect.co.uk/SWECTL077