SATA Hard Drive Issue

[ad4mg]

OK, I have a Seagate 750 GB SATA hard drive, and an Adaptec SATA controller (PCI Card). I also have an older Maxtor 120 GB SATA hard drive.

No issue with the Maxtor. Works perfectly.

When the Seagate is plugged into the card, the computer freezes on bootup.

I did the usual, switched cabling, etc. to confirm hardward is OK.

Here's the kicker ... If I unplug the Seagate during bootup, all goes fine ... and then I can hot plug the Maxtor, which works perfectly! Shows full capacity, partitioned and formatted just fine.

Restart the machine with all drives working, and the damn thing freezes when the BIOS of the SATA card begins initializing.

Could this be the motherboard BIOS is unable to handle the 750 GB Hard Drive Capacity?

The MB is an ASUS, but I don't have the model number handy ... will get it shortly and post it.

Thanks,
Luke

[N2NH]

I saw an Apple forum where someone is complaining of similar issues with his Second HD Seagate 750 GB ST3750640AS (SATA). Even though it's a different platform, you might want to see if the issues are similar to what you're seeing:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4233790

I don't know if you've done this, but I found that I had to designate my drives before they performed properly here. I have 4 going right now (2 internal/2 external) and until I designated master/slave they weren't working either. Try making the HD with the OS the master (by jumpers - it should tell you on the HD) and the other HD the slave.

Hope that helps.

[kb2vxa]

Hi Luke and all,

Sounds like a power supply problem to me. Those SATA drives draw considerable current and I had forgotten it when I upgraded the drives only the computer booted fine, the trouble started when the machine was thinking hard. When utilizing more resources it became unstable, froze and the monitor went black when the video stopped feeding it. Sometimes it shut off completely, probably in an effort to save itself. Installing a PSU with more headroom solved the problem. You may be way over the limit since yours quits the moment the drive spins up.

[ad4mg]

I saw an Apple forum where someone is complaining of similar issues with his Second HD Seagate 750 GB ST3750640AS (SATA). Even though it's a different platform, you might want to see if the issues are similar to what you're seeing:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4233790

I don't know if you've done this, but I found that I had to designate my drives before they performed properly here. I have 4 going right now (2 internal/2 external) and until I designated master/slave they weren't working either. Try making the HD with the OS the master (by jumpers - it should tell you on the HD) and the other HD the slave.

Hope that helps.

Well, That's the drive. Here's the component model numbers:

MB: ASUS P4S533-X (478 Processor Socket) with a 1.8 GHZ Intel Pentium Processor

OS: Windows XP Professional SP-2 (all updates installed)

SATA Card: Adaptec ASH-1205SA PCI SATA Controller

HD: Seagate ST3750640AS 750 GB SATA 7200 RPM Perpendicular Recording

SATA Drives don't have jumper configurations. The only jumper available is for SATA I or SATA II I/O Speeds. Since the PCI card handles only SATA I speeds, this is what both drives are set to. I tried the jumpers in both configurations.

What puzzles me is that I can "Hot-Plug" the big drive after Windows has loaded, and the damn thing works perfectly. Restart the computer, and it freezes on the PCI card's BIOS initialization.

This same hard drive was detected on boot-up in Tony's (kr4uq) computer just two weeks ago. I replaced 3 of the 750 GB Seagates with 1 TB Hitachi drives in his video machine.

The problem is probably in the BIOS of the SATA PCI Controller card, and this card does not have a Flash BIOS.

I just Flashed the BIOS on the ASUS MB (hate doing that to a working MB!!!), and there was no change. I suspect that since this drive came out long after the card was manufactured, that I'll have to get a more up to date SATA Controller card.

This is a real bummer, as the boot drive in this machine (an 80 GB EIDE) is failing. The S.M.A.R.T. technology built into the MB has been warning of an imminent Drive 0 failure for some time.

I have an email in to Adaptec Technical Support concerning the problem, but I suspect I'm right about the BIOS in that controller.

I hate computers!

[ad4mg]

Hi Luke and all,

Sounds like a power supply problem to me. Those SATA drives draw considerable current and I had forgotten it when I upgraded the drives only the computer booted fine, the trouble started when the machine was thinking hard. When utilizing more resources it became unstable, froze and the monitor went black when the video stopped feeding it. Sometimes it shut off completely, probably in an effort to save itself. Installing a PSU with more headroom solved the problem. You may be way over the limit since yours quits the moment the drive spins up.

Thanks Warren ... a good suggestion, but this monster is an old server machine, and has a 750 watt power supply in it. I have spare power cables hanging all over the place!

The power supply is normally suspect #1, especially with add-in peripherals. Not in this case, though!

[N2NH]

I saw an Apple forum where someone is complaining of similar issues with his Second HD Seagate 750 GB ST3750640AS (SATA). Even though it's a different platform, you might want to see if the issues are similar to what you're seeing:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4233790

I don't know if you've done this, but I found that I had to designate my drives before they performed properly here. I have 4 going right now (2 internal/2 external) and until I designated master/slave they weren't working either. Try making the HD with the OS the master (by jumpers - it should tell you on the HD) and the other HD the slave.

Hope that helps.

Well, That's the drive. Here's the component model numbers:

MB: ASUS P4S533-X (478 Processor Socket) with a 1.8 GHZ Intel Pentium Processor

OS: Windows XP Professional SP-2 (all updates installed)

SATA Card: Adaptec ASH-1205SA PCI SATA Controller

HD: Seagate ST3750640AS 750 GB SATA 7200 RPM Perpendicular Recording

SATA Drives don't have jumper configurations. The only jumper available is for SATA I or SATA II I/O Speeds. Since the PCI card handles only SATA I speeds, this is what both drives are set to. I tried the jumpers in both configurations.

What puzzles me is that I can "Hot-Plug" the big drive after Windows has loaded, and the damn thing works perfectly. Restart the computer, and it freezes on the PCI card's BIOS initialization.

This same hard drive was detected on boot-up in Tony's (kr4uq) computer just two weeks ago. I replaced 3 of the 750 GB Seagates with 1 TB Hitachi drives in his video machine.

The problem is probably in the BIOS of the SATA PCI Controller card, and this card does not have a Flash BIOS.

I just Flashed the BIOS on the ASUS MB (hate doing that to a working MB!!!), and there was no change. I suspect that since this drive came out long after the card was manufactured, that I'll have to get a more up to date SATA Controller card.

This is a real bummer, as the boot drive in this machine (an 80 GB EIDE) is failing. The S.M.A.R.T. technology built into the MB has been warning of an imminent Drive 0 failure for some time.

I have an email in to Adaptec Technical Support concerning the problem, but I suspect I'm right about the BIOS in that controller.

I hate computers!

ALSO FOUND THIS - sounds much like what your describing:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19171&hl=Adaptec+ASH-1205SA+PCI+SATA+Controller


I had to go through pretty much the same a month ago. Flashed the bios and all the optical drives. There is an alternative. Get an external HD case. It'll run hotter, but if you get a case that is switchable between SATA and PATA, you can run it off the USB port. I did that since I don't have a SATA card. Got mine from Radio Shack for $30, but that's the low end of the price range. Was about a 15 minute install. Transfer rates are as good as my internal drives and I'm getting close to SATA-2 rates. It's an option anyway.

[K8YS]

I build "white box" computers and sell them as networks to small businesses.

My wholesale source tech support warned me about mixing BRANDS and even different versions of the same brand in any one system. They claim that you cannot mix brands on the same SATA bus.

Bob

[M0GLO]

Seagate and Maxtor IDE drives have a long history of not playing nice together, perhaps this is the same issue even with the SATA drives?

[N8YX]

Is there a way for you to change (or disable altogether) the SATA card's auto speed negotiation feature?

I've witnessed this 'problem' with an Intel 945 chipset and certain brands of drives; Western Digital being the worst offender. Whether there's a bug in the mobo BIOS or with the drive's firmware is anyone's guess but changing the negotiation mode seems to fix it in the majority of cases I've seen...