P5K Deluxe SATA detection Issues?

[TVisitor]

Hi all,

I'm working on my new build. I just flashed the BIOS to rev 0501.

I have a Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB drive (SATA) and a LiteON SATA DVD burner.

I hooked up the HD to SATA1 & the DVD to SATA 2. When it booted, I found that nothing seemed to detect on the SATA. So I pulled the HD. It detected the DVD. I moved the HD to SATA 5. Both detected.

I tried various combinations, but it seemed when I had both components in the block of SATA 1/2/3/4, I had detection problems.

I tried the HD on SATA 5 & the DVD on SATA 6, and both detected fine.

What gives here? I know that the 1/2/3/4 are on one chip, and 5 & 6 are on another. I thought perhaps the system was detecting both drives as masters, but there's no way to change that in SATA (I'm thinking back to old fashioned IDE...)

Also what's the deal with the fact that the red connectors are called "master" (1/2/5/6) and the black are "slave" (3/4)...? I tried the HD on 2 and the DVD on 4, and still no dice.

Do I have a bum board? Or something else I just don't understand about SATA (which I hope is the case).

FYI, I have a 8800GTX board, and while SATA 1 & 3 are tight fits, I can plug the cables in without too much issue (plugging them in first and then inserting the video board makes it much easier).

Thanks.

Edit: I have a 2nd DVD drive that I want to connect (for the purpose of copying CD's and stuff, but that really doesn't matter). No matter which SATA connector I plug it into - 1/2/3/4, when I have 5/6 filled, I cannot get the drive to detect. If I take the others off it detects. I can put it online with the HD in 5 and this drive in 6... but not all 3 devices at the same time. ARGH.

 

[SKORPI0]

Page 2-28 of manual.

When using the connectors in Standard IDE mode, connect the primary
(boot) hard disk drive to the SATA 1/2/5 connector. Refer to the table below
for the recommended SATA hard disk drive connections.

Serial ATA hard disk drive connection

Connector---------------Color--------------Setting---------------Use

SATA 1/2/5/6----------- Red --------------Master------------ Boot disk
SATA 3/4----------------Black--------------Slave------------- Data Disk

Just order the same mobo from Newegg for $227 for a system upgrade. Good luck.

 

[TVisitor]

Right, I did read that... But what's confusing me is "boot disk", "data disk", "master" and "slave". After doing looking last night online, it seems the terms "master" and "slave" for SATA are meaningless because you only hang one device off a SATA port unlike conventional IDE where you have 2 devices and hence a master and slave.

So I want to boot off my SATA hard drive, so I plug it into "1". I assume I should then plug my DVD drives into 3 & 4.

However, I of course want to boot off a DVD drive to install XP. Or use other bootable CD's... Now what? I realize that in the BIOS you can choose boot order.

Pardon my confusion, but something doesn't make sense to me.

I'll try the HD on 1 and the DVD's on 3 & 4 today and see what happens, though, but something doesn't sit right about the terminology and the availability of the connectors. Is this implying I can't have 6 devices? Not that I'm going to... Just wondering.

 

[LightningRider]

Seems a little strange, but trying them in that configuration is worth it since that is what the manual recommends.

I'm getting mine tonight along with Q6700, 4GB DDR2 800mhz so I'll tell you if I have any similar problems. I have 2 SATA DVDs and 1 SATA HDD too.

 

[TVisitor]

Well, I did try it and it didn't work. However, it dawned on me that maybe you need to fill up the "master" before plugging in a "slave" - so I moved the DVD to SATA2, and it was fine.

So the final config was SATA1 : HD, SATA2 : DVD, SATA3 : DVD.

I know I had SATA1 and 2 in that config earlier, but perhaps "needing" something in SATA3 lends creedence to the "need to fill up the slave before the next master" idea. Still seems weird.

During the phase where it would not detect one of the drives, on reboot it would sometimes say "Overclock failed!" which was odd. Though, my current ASUS board for my P4 on a crash or something sometimes boots up into the BIOS and tells me that the last boot did not succeed because of incorrect CPU parameters!

It was a tossup between this and the GA-P35-DQ6 from Gigabyte, and I chose this. I wonder if the Gigabyte has these weird SATA issues (I know from looking in the BIOS, there are allusions to master/slave on the SATA channels, too...)

 

[LightningRider]

Well, just be glad it's working now I guess.

 

[TVisitor]

Yeah that's true...

I got a response from ASUS (I mailed them as well asking, same content as my original message here) and they told me that I had troubleshot as much as possible, and that they figure that the board is bad and I should return it.

Whee! I guess though since it works I will keepit.

Since it's up and running, should I switch it away from IDE compatability mode to something else? I'm not sure if that will gain me anything with the devices I have.